J 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


GREY     ROSES 


By  the  same  Author 

The  Cardinal's  Snuff-Box 
Eighty-Fifth   Thousand 

Comedies  and  Errors 
Third  edition 

The  Lady  Paramount 


GREY    ROSES 

BY   HENRY   HARLAND 


'  Yes,  the  conception  was  a  rose, 
but  the  achievement  is  a  rose 
grown  grey. ' —  PARASCHK1NE 


JOHN  LANE  COMPANY,  NEW  YORK 

JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD,  LONDON 

MDCCCCVI 


Copyright  by  Roberts  Brothers,  1895 
Copyright  by  John  Lane  Company,  /pod 


FOURTH    EDITION 


PRKSSWORK     BV    THB    UNIVERSITY     PRESS 
JOHN    WILSON    AND   SON     •    CAMBRIDGE,    U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 
THE   BOHEMIAN   GIRL,     .....  I 

MERCEDES,  .  .  .  .  .  •  54 

A   BROKEN   LOOKING-GLASS,         .  .  .  .67 

THE    REWARD   OF   VIRTUE,  .  .  .  .78 

A   RE-INCARNATION,         .  '  .  .96 

FLOWER  O'  THE  QUINCE,  ....         123 

WHEN   I   AM   KING,  .....         I$5 

A   RESPONSIBILITY,  .....          l6l 

CASTLES   NEAR  SPAIN,     .....         183 


ENGLISH 


THE  BOHEMIAN  GIRL 


I  WOKE  up  very  gradually  this  morning, 
and  it  took  me  a  little  while  to  bethink 
myself  where  I  had  slept — that  it  had  not  been 
in  my  own  room  in  the  Cromwell  Road.  I 
lay  a-bed,  with  eyes  half-closed,  drowsily  look, 
ing  forward  to  the  usual  procession  of  sober- 
hued  London  hours,  and,  for  the  moment,  quite 
forgot  the  journey  of  yesterday,  and  how  it 
had  left  me  in  Paris,  a  guest  in  the  smart  new 
house  of  my  old  friend,  Nina  Childe.  Indeed, 
it  was  not  until  somebody  tapped  on  my 
door,  and  I  roused  myself  to  call  out 
'Come  in,'  that  I  noticed  the  strangeness  of 
the  wall-paper,  and  then,  after  an  instant  of 
perplexity,  suddenly  remembered.  Oh,  with 
a  wonderful  lightening  of  the  spirit,  I  can 

tell  you. 

A 


2  GREY    ROSES 

A  white-capped,  brisk  young  woman,  with  a 
fresh-coloured,  wholesome  peasant  face,  came 
in,  bearing  a  tray — Jeanne,  Nina's  femme-de- 
chambre. 

'  Bonjour,  monsieur,'  she  cried  cheerily.  '  I 
bring  monsieur  his  coffee/  And  her  announce 
ment  was  followed  by  a  fragrance — the  softly- 
sung  response  of  the  coffee-sprite.  Her  tray, 
with  its  pretty  freight  of  silver  and  linen,  prim 
rose  butter,  and  gently-browned  pain-de-gruau, 
she  set  down  on  the  table  at  my  elbow ;  then 
she  crossed  the  room  and  drew  back  the 
window  -  curtains,  making  the  rings  tinkle 
crisply  on  the  metal  rods,  and  letting  in  a 
gush  of  dazzling  sunshine.  From  where  I  lay 
I  could  see  the  house-fronts  opposite  glow 
pearly-grey  in  shadow,  and  vhe  crest  of  the 
slate  roofs  sharply  print  itself  on  the  sky,  like 
a  black  line  on  a  sheet  of  scintillant  blue 
velvet  Yet,  a  few  minutes  ago,  I  had  been 
fancying  myself  in  the  Cromwell  Road. 

Jeanne,  gathering  up  my  scattered  garments, 
to  take  them  off  and  brush  them,  inquired,  by 
the  way,  if  monsieur  had  passed  a  comfortable 
night. 

'As  the  chambermaid  makes  your  bed,  so 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL        3 

must  you  lie  in  it,'  I  answered.  '  And  you 
know  whether  my  bed  was  smoothly  made.' 

Jeanne  smiled  indulgently.  But  her  next 
remark — did  it  imply  that  she  found  me  rusty? 
'  Here's  a  long  time  that  you  haven't  been  in 
Paris.' 

'  Yes,'  I  admitted  ;  *  not  since  May,  and  now 
we're  in  November.' 

'We  have  changed  things  a  little,  have  we 
not?'  she  demanded,  with  a  gesture  that  left 
the  room,  and  included  the  house,  the  street, 
the  quarter. 

'  In  effect,'  assented  I. 

'  Monsieur  desires  his  hot  water  ? '  she  asked, 
abruptly  irrelevant. 

But  I  could  be,  or  at  least  seem,  ab 
ruptly  irrelevant  too.  'Mademoiselle — is  she 
up?' 

'  Ah,  yes,  monsieur.  Mademoiselle  has  been 
up  since  eight.  She  awaits  you  in  the  salon. 
La  voil&  qui  joue,'  she  added,  pointing  to  the 
floor. 

Nina  had  begun  to  play  scales  in  the  room 
below. 

'  Then  you  may  bring  me  my  hot  water,'  I 
said. 


GREY    ROSES 


II 


The  scales  continued  while  I  was  dressing, 
and  many  desultory  reminiscences  of  the  player, 
and  vague  reflections  upon  the  unlikelihood  of 
her  adventures,  went  flitting  through  my  mind 
to  their  rhythm.  Here  she  was,  scarcely  turned 
thirty,  beautiful,  brilliant,  rich  in  her  own  right, 
as  free  in  all  respects  to  follow  her  own  will  as 
any  man  could  be,  with  Camille  happily  at  her 
side,  a  well  grown,  rosy,  merry  miss  of  twelve, — 
here  was  Nina,  thus,  to-day;  and  yet,a  mere  little 
ten  years  ago,  I  remembered  her  ....  ah,  in  a 
very  different  plight  indeed.  True,  she  has  got 
no  more  than  her  deserts ;  she  has  paid  for  her 
success,  every  pennyweight  of  it,  in  hard  work 
and  self-denial.  But  one  is  so  expectant,  here 
below,  to  see  Fortune  capricious,  that,  when  for 
once  in  a  way  she  bestows  her  favours  where  they 
are  merited,  one  can't  help  feeling  rather  dazed. 
One  is  so  inured  to  seeing  honest  Effort  turn 
empty-handed  from  her  door. 

Ten  little  years  ago — but  no.  I  must  begin 
further  back.  I  must  tell  you  something  about 
Nina's  father. 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL        5 


III 


He  was  an  Englishman  who  lived  for  the 
greater  part  of  his  life  in  Paris.  I  would  say 
he  was  a  painter,  if  he  had  not  been  equally  a 
sculptor,  a  musician,  an  architect,  a  writer  of 
verse,  and  a  university  coach.  A  doer  of  so 
many  things  is  inevitably  suspect ;  you  will 
imagine  that  he  must  have  bungled  them  all. 
On  the  contrary,  whatever  he  did,  he  did  with 
a  considerable  degree  of  accomplishment  The 
landscapes  he  painted  were  very  fresh  and 
pleasing,  delicately  coloured,  with  lots  of  air  in 
them,  and  a  dreamy,  suggestive  sentiment 
His  brother  sculptors  declared  that  his  statu 
ettes  were  modelled  with  exceeding  dash  and 
directness ;  they  were  certainly  fanciful  and 
amusing.  I  remember  one  that  I  used  to  like 
immensely — Titania  driving  to  a  tryst  with 
Bottom,  her  chariot  a  lily,  daisies  for  wheels, 
and  for  steeds  a  pair  of  mettlesome  field-mice. 
I  doubt  if  he  ever  got  a  commission  for  a  com 
plete  house  ;  but  the  staircases  he  designed, 
the  fire-places,  and  other  bits  of  buildings, 
everybody  thought  original  and  graceful.  The 


6  GREY    ROSES 

tunes  he  wrote  were  lively  and  catching,  the 
words  never  stupid,  sometimes  even  strikingly 
happy,  epigrammatic  ;  and  he  sang  them  de 
lightfully,  in  a  robust,  hearty  baritone.  He 
coached  the  youth  of  France,  for  their  ex 
aminations,  in  Latin  and  Greek,  in  history, 
mathematics,  general  literature — in  goodness 
knows  what  not;  and  his  pupils  failed  so  rarely 
that,  when  one  did,  the  circumstance  became  a 
nine  days'  wonder.  The  world  beyond  the 
Students'  Quarter  had  never  heard  of  him,  but 
there  he  was  a  celebrity  and  a  favourite ;  and, 
strangely  enough  for  a  man  with  so  many 
strings  to  his  bow,  he  contrived  to  pick  up  a 
sufficient  living. 

He  was  a  splendid  creature  to  look  at,  tall, 
stalwart,  full-blooded,  with  a  ruddy  open-air 
complexion;  a  fine  bold  brow  and  nose;  brown 
eyes,  humorous,  intelligent,  kindly,  that  always 
brightened  flatteringly  when  they  met  you ; 
and  a  vast  quantity  of  bluish-grey  hair  and 
beard.  In  his  dress  he  affected  (very  wisely, 
for  they  became  him  excellently)  velvet  jackets, 
flannel  shirts,  loosely-knotted  ties,  and  wide- 
brimmed  soft  felt  hats.  Marching  down  the 
Boulevard  St  Michel,  his  broad  shoulders 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL        7 

well  thrown  back,  his  head  erect,  chin  high  in 
air,  his  whole  person  radiating  health,  power, 
contentment,  and  the  pride  of  them :  he 
was  a  sight  worth  seeing,  spirited,  pictur 
esque,  prepossessing.  You  could  not  have 
passed  him  without  noticing  him — without 
wondering  who  he  was,  confident  he  was 
somebody — without  admiring  him,  and  feel 
ing  that  there  went  a  man  it  would  be  in 
teresting  to  know. 

He  was,  indeed,  charming  to  know ;  he  was 
the  hero,  the  idol,  of  a  little  sect  of  worshippers, 
young  fellows  who  loved  nothing  better  than 
to  sit  at  his  feet.  On  the  Rive  Gauche,  to  be 
sure,  we  are,  for  the  most  part,  birds  of  pas 
sage  ;  a  student  arrives,  tarries  a  little,  then 
departs.  So,  with  the  exits  and  entrances  of 
seniors  and  nouveaux,  the  personnel  of  old 
Childe's  following  varied  from  season  to  sea 
son  ;  but  numerically  it  remained  pretty  much 
the  same.  He  had  a  studio,  with  a  few  living- 
rooms  attached,  somewhere  up  in  the  fastnesses 
of  Montparnasse,  though  it  was  seldom  thither 
that  one  went  to  seek  him.  He  received  at  his 
cafe,  the  Caf<£  Bleu — the  Cafe  Bleu  which  has 
since  blown  into  the  monster  caf6  of  the 


8  GREY    ROSES 

Quarter,  the  noisiest,  the  rowdiest,  the  most 
flamboyant.  But  I  am  writing  (alas)  of  twelve, 
thirteen,  fifteen  years  ago ;  in  those  days  the 
Caf6  Bleu  consisted  of  a  single  oblong  room — 
with  a  sanded  floor,  a  dozen  tables,  and  two 
waiters,  Eugene  and  Hippolyte  —  where  Ma 
dame  Chanve,  the  patronne>  in  lofty  insulation 
behind  her  counter,  reigned,  if  you  please,  but 
where  Childe,  her  principal  client,  governed. 
The  bottom  of  the  shop,  at  any  rate,  was  re 
served  exclusively  to  his  use.  There  he  dined, 
wrote  his  letters,  dispensed  his  hospitalities ; 
he  had  his  own  piano  there,  if  you  can  believe 
me,  his  foils  and  boxing-gloves ;  from  the 
absinthe  hour  till  bed -time  there  was  his 
habitat,  his  den.  And  woe  to  the  passing 
stranger  who,  mistaking  the  Caf<6  Bleu  for  an 
ordinary  house  of  call,  ventured,  during  that 
consecrated  period,  to  drop  in.  Nothing  would 
be  said,  nothing  done;  we  would  not  even 
trouble  to  stare  at  the  intruder.  Yet  he  would 
seldom  stop  to  finish  his  consommation,  or  he 
would  bolt  it  He  would  feel  something  in 
the  air ;  he  would  know  he  was  out  of  place. 
He  would  fidget  a  little,  frown  a  little,  and  get 
up  meekly,  and  slink  into  the  street  Human 


THE    BOHEMIAN   GIRL        9 

magnetism  is  such  a  subtle  force.  And  Ma 
dame  Chanve  didn't  mind  in  the  least ;  she  pre 
ferred  a  bird  in  the  hand  to  a  brace  in  the 
bush.  From  half  a  dozen  to  a  score  of  us 
dined  at  her  long  table  every  evening ;  as 
many  more  drank  her  appetisers  in  the 
afternoon,  and  came  again  at  night  for  grog  or 
coffee.  You  see,  it  was  a  sort  of  club,  a  club 
of  which  Childe  was  at  once  the  chairman  and 
the  object.  If  we  had  had  a  written  constitu 
tion,  it  must  have  begun  :  '  The  purpose  of  this 
association  is  the  enjoyment  of  the  society  of 
Alfred  Childe.' 

Ah,  those  afternoons,  those  dinners,  those 
ambrosial  nights !  If  the  weather  was  kind, 
of  course,  we  would  begin  our  session  on 
the  terrasse,  sipping  our  vermouth,  puffing 
our  cigarettes,  laughing  our  laughs,  tossing 
hither  and  thither  our  light  ball  of  gossip, 
vaguely  conscious  of  the  perpetual  ebb  and 
flow  and  murmur  of  people  in  the  Boulevard, 
while  the  setting  sun  turned  Paris  to  a 
marvellous  water-colour,  all  pale  lucent  tints, 
amber  and  alabaster  and  mother-of-pearl, 
with  amethystine  shadows.  Then,  one  by 
one,  those  of  us  who  were  dining  elsewhere 


io  GREY    ROSES 

would  slip  away ;  and  at  a  sign  from 
Hippolyte  the  others  would  move  indoors, 
and  take  their  places  down  either  side  of 
the  long  narrow  table,  Childe  at  the  head, 
his  daughter  Nina  next  him.  And  presently 
with  what  a  clatter  of  knives  and  forks, 
clinking  of  glasses,  and  babble  of  human 
voices  the  Cafe  Bleu  would  echo.  Madame 
Chanve's  kitchen  was  not  a  thing  to  boast 
of,  and  her  price,  for  the  Latin  Quarter,  was 
rather  high — I  think  we  paid  three  francs, 
wine  included,  which  would  be  for  most  of 
us  distinctly  a  prix-de-luxe.  But  oh,  it  was 
such  fun ;  we  were  so  young ;  Childe  was 
so  delightful.  The  fun  was  best,  of  course, 
when  we  were  few,  and  could  all  sit  up  near 
to  him,  and  none  need  lose  a  word.  When 
we  were  many  there  would  be  something 
like  a  scramble  for  good  seats. 

I  ask  myself  whether,  if  I  could  hear  him 
again  to-day,  I  should  think  his  talk  as 
wondrous  as  I  thought  it  then.  Then  I 
could  thrill  at  the  verse  of  Musset,  and  linger 
lovingly  over  the  prose  of  Th6ophile,  I 
could  laugh  at  the  wit  of  Gustave  Droz, 
and  weep  at  the  pathos  ....  it  costs  me  a 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      II 

pang  to  own  it,  but  yes,  I'm  afraid  ....  I 
could  weep  at  the  pathos  of  Henry  Miirger; 
and  these  have  all  suffered  such  a  sad 
sea-change  since.  So  I  could  sit,  hour  after 
hour,  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy,  listening  to  the  talk 
of  Nina's  father.  It  flowed  from  him  like 
wine  from  a  full  measure,  easily,  smoothly, 
abundantly.  He  had  a  ripe,  genial  voice, 
and  an  enunciation  that  made  crystals  of 
his  words  ;  whilst  his  range  of  subjects  was 
as  wide  as  the  earth  and  the  sky.  He  would 
talk  to  you  of  God  and  man,  of  metaphysics, 
ethics,  the  last  new  play,  murder,  or  change 
of  ministry  ;  of  books,  of  pictures,  specifically, 
or  of  the  general  principles  of  literature  and 
painting ;  of  people,  of  sunsets,  of  Italy,  of 
the  high  seas,  of  the  Paris  streets — of  what, 
in  fine,  you  pleased.  Or  he  would  spin  you 
yarns,  sober,  farcical,  veridical,  or  invented. 
And,  with  transitions  infinitely  rapid,  he  would 
be  serious,  jocose — solemn,  ribald — earnest, 
flippant — logical,  whimsical,  turn  and  turn 
about.  And  in  every  sentence,  in  its  form 
or  in  its  substance,  he  would  wrap  a  surprise 
for  you — it  was  the  unexpected  word,  the 
unexpected  assertion,  sentiment,  conclusion, 


12  GREY    ROSES 

that  constantly  arrived.  Meanwhile  it  would 
enhance  your  enjoyment  mightily  to  watch 
his  physiognomy,  the  movements  of  his  great, 
grey,  shaggy  head,  the  lightening  and  darken 
ing  of  his  eyes,  his  smile,  his  frown,  his 
occasional  slight  shrug  or  gesture.  But  the 
oddest  thing  was  this,  that  he  could  take 
as  well  as  give ;  he  could  listen — surely  a 
rare  talent  in  a  monologist.  Indeed,  I  have 
never  known  a  man  who  could  make  you 
feel  so  interesting. 

After  dinner  he  would  light  an  immense 
brown  meerschaum  pipe,  and  smoke  for  a 
quarter-hour  or  so  in  silence ;  then  he  would 
play  a  game  or  two  of  chess  with  some  one ; 
and  by  and  by  he  would  open  his  piano, 
and  sing  to  us  till  midnight 


IV 


I  speak  of  him  as  old,  and  indeed  we 
always  called  him  Old  Childe  among  our 
selves  ;  yet  he  was  barely  fifty.  Nina,  when 
I  first  made  her  acquaintance,  must  have 
been  a  girl  of  sixteen  or  seventeen ;  though 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      13 

— tall,  with  an  amply-rounded,  mature-seem 
ing  figure — if  one  had  judged  from  her 
appearance,  one  would  have  fancied  her  three 
or  four  years  older.  For  that  matter,  she 
looked  then  very  much  as  she  looks  now; 
I  can  perceive  scarcely  any  alteration.  She 
had  the  same  dark  hair,  gathered  up  in  a 
big  smooth  knot  behind,  and  breaking  into  a 
tumult  of  little  ringlets  over  her  forehead ; 
the  same  clear,  sensitive  complexion ;  the 
same  rather  large,  full-lipped  mouth,  tip- 
tilted  nose,  soft  chin,  and  merry  mischiev 
ous  eyes.  She  moved  in  the  same  way, 
with  the  same  leisurely,  almost  lazy  grace, 
that  could,  however,  on  occasions,  quicken 
to  an  alert,  elastic  vivacity ;  she  had 
the  same  voice,  a  trifle  deeper  than  most 
women's,  and  of  a  quality  never  so  delicately 
nasal,  which  made  it  racy  and  characteristic; 
the  same  fresh  ready  laughter.  There  was 
something  arch,  something  a  little  sceptical, 
a  little  quizzical  in  her  expression,  as  if, 
perhaps,  she  were  disposed  to  take  the  world, 
more  or  less,  with  a  grain  of  salt ;  at  the 
same  time  there  was  something  rich,  warm 
blooded,  luxurious,  suggesting  that  she  would 


14  GREY    ROSES 

know  how  to  savour  its  pleasantnesses  with 
complete  enjoyment  But  if  you  felt  that 
she  was  by  way  of  being  the  least  bit  satirical 
in  her  view  of  things,  you  felt  too  that  she 
was  altogether  good-natured,  and  even  that, 
at  need,  she  could  show  herself  spontaneously 
kind,  generous,  devoted.  And  if  you  inferred 
that  her  temperament  inclined  rather  towards 
the  sensuous  than  the  ascetic,  believe  me,  it 
did  not  lessen  her  attractiveness. 

At  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing  now, 
the  sentiment  that  reigned  between  Nina 
and  Old  Childe's  retinue  of  young  men  was 
chiefly  an  esprit-de-corps.  Later  on  we  all  fell 
in  love  with  her ;  but  for  the  present  we 
were  simply  amiably  fraternal.  We  were 
united  to  her  by  a  common  enthusiasm  ;  we 
were  fellow-celebrants  at  her  ancestral  altar — 
or,  rather,  she  was  the  high  priestess  there, 
we  were  her  acolytes.  For,  with  her,  filial  piety 
did  in  very  truth  partake  of  the  nature  of 
religion ;  she  really,  literally,  idolised  her 
father.  One  only  needed  to  watch  her  for 
three  minutes,  as  she  sat  beside  him,  to 
understand  the  depth  and  ardour  of  her 
emotion :  how  she  adored  him,  how  she  ad- 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      15 

mired  him  and  believed  in  him,  how  proud  of 
him  she  was,  how  she  rejoiced  in  him.  '  Oh, 
you  think  you  know  my  father,'  I  remember 
her  saying  to  us  once.  '  Nobody  knows  him. 
Nobody  is  great  enough  to  know  him.  If 
people  knew  him  they  would  fall  down  and 
kiss  the  ground  he  walks  on.'  It  is  certain 
she  deemed  him  the  wisest,  the  noblest,  the 
handsomest,  the  most  gifted,  of  human  kind. 
That  little  gleam  of  mockery  in  her  eye 
died  out  instantly  when  she  looked  at  him, 
when  she  spoke  of  him  or  listened  to  him  ;  in 
stead,  there  came  a  tender  light  of  love,  and 
her  face  grew  pale  with  the  fervour  of  her 
affection.  Yet,  when  he  jested,  no  one  laughed 
more  promptly  or  more  heartily  than  she.  In 
those  days  I  was  perpetually  trying  to  write 
fiction ;  and  Old  Childe  was  my  inveterate  hero. 
I  forget  in  how  many  ineffectual  manuscripts, 
under  what  various  dread  disguises,  he  was 
afterwards  reduced  to  ashes ;  I  am  afraid,  in 
one  case,  a  scandalous  distortion  of  him  got 
abroad  in  print.  Publishers  are  sometimes  ill- 
advised  ;  and  thus  the  indiscretions  of  our  youth 
may  become  the  confusions  of  our  age.  The 
thing  was  in  three  volumes,  and  called  itself 


16  GREY    ROSES 

a  novel ;  and  of  course  the  fatuous  author  had 
to  make  a  bad  business  worse  by  presenting 
a  copy  to  his  victim.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  look  Nina  gave  me  when  I  asked  her  if 
she  had  read  it;  I  grow  hot  even  now  as  I 
recall  it.  I  had  waited  and  waited  expecting 
her  compliments ;  and  at  last  I  could  wait 
no  longer,  and  so  asked  her ;  and  she 
answered  me  with  a  look !  It  was  weeks,  I 
am  not  sure  it  wasn't  months,  before  she  took 
me  back  to  her  good  graces.  But  Old 
Childe  was  magnanimous ;  he  sent  me  a 
little  pencil-drawing  of  his  head,  inscribed 
in  the  corner,  'To  Frankenstein  from  his 
Monster.' 


It  was  a  queer  life  for  a  girl  to  live,  that 
happy-go-lucky  life  of  the  Latin  Quarter, 
lawless  and  unpremeditated,  with  a  caf£  for 
her  school-room,  and  none  but  men  for 
comrades ;  but  Nina  liked  it ;  and  her  father 
had  a  theory  in  his  madness.  He  was  a 
Bohemian,  not  in  practice  only,  but  in  prin- 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      17 

ciple ;  he  preached  Bohemianism  as  the  most 
rational  manner  of  existence,  maintaining  that 
it  developed  what  was  intrinsic  and  authentic 
in  one's  character,  saved  one  from  the  arti 
ficial,  and  brought  one  into  immediate  con 
tact  with  the  realities  of  the  world ;  and  he 
protested  he  could  see  no  reason  why  a 
human  being  should  be  'cloistered  and  con 
tracted'  because  of  her  sex.  'What  would 
not  hurt  my  son,  if  I  had  one,  will  not  hurt 
my  daughter.  It  will  make  a  man  of  her — 
without  making  her  the  less  a  woman.'  So 
he  took  her  with  him  to  the  Caf6  Bleu,  and 
talked  in  her  presence  quite  as  freely  as  he 
might  have  talked  had  she  been  absent.  As, 
in  the  greater  number  of  his  theological, 
political,  and  social  convictions,  he  was  ex 
ceedingly  unorthodox,  she  heard  a  good  deal, 
no  doubt,  that  most  of  us  would  scarcely 
consider  edifying  for  our  daughters'  ears ; 
but  he  had  his  system,  he  knew  what  he 
was  about.  'The  question  whether  you  can 
touch  pitch  and  remain  undefiled,'  he  said, 
'depends  altogether  upon  the  spirit  in  which 
you  approach  it  The  realities  of  the  world, 
the  realities  of  life,  the  real  things  of  God's 


18  GREY    ROSES 

universe — what  have  we  eyes  for,  if  not  to 
envisage  them?  Do  so  fearlessly,  honestly, 
with  a  clean  heart,  and,  man  or  woman,  you 
can  only  be  the  better  for  it.1  Perhaps  his 
system  was  a  shade  too  simple,  a  shade  too 
obvious,  for  this  complicated  planet ;  but  he 
held  to  it  in  all  sincerity.  It  was  in  pursu 
ance  of  the  same  system,  I  daresay,  that  he 
taught  Nina  to  fence,  and  to  read  Latin  and 
Greek,  as  well  as  to  play  the  piano,  and 
turn  an  omelette.  She  could  ply  a  foil 
against  the  best  of  us. 

And  then,  quite  suddenly,  he  died. 

I  think  it  was  in  March,  or  April ;  anyhow 
it  was  a  premature  spring-like  day,  and  he 
had  left  off  his  overcoat.  That  evening  he 
went  to  the  Od£on,  and  when,  after  the  play 
he  joined  us  for  supper  at  the  Bleu,  he  said 
he  thought  he  had  caught  a  cold,  and  ordered 
hot  grog.  The  next  day  he  did  not  turn  up 
at  all ;  so  several  of  us,  after  dinner,  pre 
sented  ourselves  at  his  lodgings  in  Mont- 
parnasse.  We  found  him  in  bed,  with  Nina 
reading  to  him.  He  was  feverish,  and  Nina 
had  insisted  that  he  should  stop  at  home. 
He  would  be  all  right  to-morrow.  He  scoffed 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      19 

at  our  suggestion  that  he  should  see  a  doctor ; 
he  was  one  of  those  men  who  affect  to  de 
spise  the  medical  profession.  But  early  on 
the  following  morning  a  commissionnaire 
brought  me  a  note  from  Nina.  '  My  father 
is  very  much  worse.  Can  you  come  at  once  ? ' 
He  was  delirious.  Poor  Nina,  white,  with 
frightened  eyes,  moved  about  like  one  dis 
tracted.  We  sent  off  for  Dr.  R6noult,  we 
had  in  a  Sister  of  Charity.  Everything  that 
could  be  done  was  done.  Till  the  very  end, 
none  of  us  for  a  moment  doubted  that  he 
would  recover.  It  was  impossible  to  conceive 
that  that  strong,  affirmative  life  could  be  ex 
tinguished.  And  even  after  the  end  had 
come,  the  end  with  its  ugly  suite  of  material 
circumstances,  I  don't  think  any  of  us  realised 
what  it  meant.  It  was  as  if  we  had  been 
told  that  one  of  the  forces  of  Nature  had 
become  inoperative.  And  Nina,  through  it  all, 
was  like  some  pale  thing  in  marble,  that 
breathed  and  moved :  white,  dazed,  helpless, 
with  aching,  incredulous  eyes,  suffering  every 
thing,  understanding  nothing. 

When  it  came  to  the  worst  of  the  dreadful 
necessary  businesses  that  followed,  some  of  us 


20  GREY    ROSES 

somehow,  managed  to  draw  her  from  the  death- 
chamber  into  another  room,  and  to  keep  her 
there,  while  others  of  us  got  it  over.  It  was 
snowing  that  afternoon,  I  remember,  a  melan 
choly,  hesitating  snowstorm,  with  large  moist 
flakes  that  fluttered  down  irresolutely,  and  pre 
sently  disintegrated  into  rain  ;  but  we  had  not 
far  to  go.  Then  we  returned  to  Nina,  and  for 
many  days  and  nights  we  never  dared  to  leave 
her.  You  will  guess  whether  the  question  of 
her  future,  especially  of  her  immediate  future, 
weighed  heavily  upon  our  minds.  In  the  end, 
however,  it  appeared  to  have  solved  itself — 
though  I  can't  pretend  that  the  solution  was 
exactly  all  we  could  have  wished. 

Her  father  had  a  half-brother  (we  learned 
this  from  his  papers),  incumbent  of  rather  an 
important  living  in  the  north  of  England.  We 
also  learned  that  the  brothers  had  scarcely  seen 
each  other  twice  in  a  score  of  years,  and  had 
kept  up  only  the  most  fitful  correspondence. 
Nevertheless,  we  wrote  to  the  clergyman,  de 
scribing  the  sad  case  of  his  niece,  and  in  reply 
we  got  a  letter,  addressed  to  Nina  herself, 
saying  that  of  course  she  must  come  at  once  to 
Yorkshire,  and  consider  the  rectory  her  home. 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      21 

I  don't  need  to  recount  the  difficulties  we  had 
in  explaining  to  her,  in  persuading  her.  I  have 
known  few  more  painful  moments  than  that 
when,  at  the  Gare  du  Nord,  half  a  dozen  of  us 
established  the  poor,  benumbed,  bewildered 
child  in  her  compartment,  and  sent  her,  with 
our  godspeed,  alone  upon  her  long  journey — 
to  her  strange  kindred,  and  the  strange  condi 
tions  of  life  she  would  have  to  encounter  among 
them.  From  the  Caf<£  Bleu  to  a  Yorkshire  par 
sonage  !  And  Nina's  was  not  by  any  means  a 
neutral  personality,  nor  her  mind  a  blank  sheet 
of  paper.  She  had  a  will  of  her  own  ;  she  had 
convictions,  aspirations,  traditions,  prejudices, 
which  she  would  hold  to  with  enthusiasm  be 
cause  they  had  been  her  father's,  because  her 
father  had  taught  them  to  her ;  and  she  had 
manners,  habits,  tastes.  She  would  be  sure  to 
horrify  the  people  she  was  going  to  ;  she  would 
be  sure  to  resent  their  criticism,  their  slightest 
attempt  at  interference.  Oh,  my  heart  was  full 
of  misgivings  ;  yet — she  had  no  money,  she  was 
eighteen  years  old — what  else  could  we  advise 
her  to  do  ?  All  the  same,  her  face,  as  it  looked 
down  upon  us  from  the  window  of  her  railway 
carriage,  white,  with  big  terrified  eyes  fixed  in  a 


22  GREY    ROSES 

gaze  of  blank  uncomprehending  anguish,  kept 
rising  up  to  reproach  me  for  weeks  afterwards. 
I  had  her  on  my  conscience  as  if  I  had  person 
ally  wronged  her. 


VI. 


It  was  characteristic  of  her  that,  during  her 
absence,  she  hardly  wrote  to  us.  She  is  of 
far  too  hasty  and  impetuous  a  nature  to  take 
kindly  to  the  task  of  letter-writing  ;  her  moods 
are  too  inconstant ;  her  thoughts,  her  fancies, 
supersede  one  another  too  rapidly.  Anyhow, 
beyond  the  telegram  we  had  made  her  promise 
to  send,  announcing  her  safe  arrival,  the  most 
favoured  of  us  got  nothing  more  than  an  occa 
sional  scrappy  note,  if  he  got  so  much ;  while 
the  greater  number  of  the  long  epistles  some  of 
us  felt  in  duty  bound  to  address  to  her,  elicited 
not  even  the  semblance  of  an  acknowledgment. 
Hence,  about  the  particulars  of  her  experience 
we  were  quite  in  the  dark,  though  of  its  general 
features  we  were  informed,  succinctly,  in  a  big, 
dashing,  uncompromising  hand,  that  she  'hated' 
them. 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      23 


VII. 

I  am  not  sure  whether  it  was  late  in  April  or 
early  in  May  that  Nina  left  us.  But  one  day 
towards  the  middle  of  October,  coming  home 
from  the  restaurant  where  I  had  lunched,  I 
found  in  my  letter  box,  in  the  concierge's  room, 
two  half  sheets  of  paper,  folded,  with  the  corners 
turned  down,  and  my  name  superscribed  in 
pencil.  The  handwriting  startled  me  a  little — 
and  yet,  no,  it  was  impossible.  Then  I  hastened 
to  unfold,  and  read,  and  of  course  it  was  the 
impossible  which  had  happened. 

'Mon  cher,  I  am  sorry  not  to  find  you  at 
home,  but  I'll  wait  at  the  caf£  at  the  corner  till 
half-past  twelve.  It  is  now  midi  juste.'  That 
was  the  first.  The  second  ran  :  '  I  have  waited 
till  a  quarter  to  one.  Now  I  am  going  to  the 
Bleu  for  luncheon.  I  shall  be  there  till  three,' 
And  each  was  signed  with  the  initials,  N.  C. 

It  was  not  yet  two,  so  I  had  plenty  of  time. 
But  you  will  believe  that  I  didn't  loiter  on  that 
account.  I  dashed  out  of  the  loge — into  the 
street — down  the  Boulevard  St.  Michel — into 
the  Bleu,  breathlessly.  At  the  far  end  Nina 


24  GREY    ROSES 

was  seated  before  a  marble  table,  with  Madame 
Chanve  in  smiles  and  tears  beside  her.  I  heard 
a  little  cry ;  I  felt  myself  seized  and  enveloped 
for  a  moment  by  something  like  a  whirlwind — 
oh,  but  a  very  pleasant  whirlwind,  warm  and 
fresh,  and  fragrant  of  violets ;  I  received  two 
vigorous  kisses,  one  on  either  cheek  ;  and  then 
I  was  held  off  at  arm's  length,  and  examined 
by  a  pair  of  laughing  eyes. 

And  at  last  a  voice — rather  a  deep  voice  for 
a  woman's,  with  just  a  crisp  edge  to  it,  that 
might  have  been  called  slightly  nasal,  but  was 
agreeable  and  individual — a  voice  said :  '  En 
voila  assez.  Come  and  sit  down.' 

She  had  finished  her  luncheon,  and  was  tak 
ing  coffee  ;  and  if  the  whole  truth  must  be  told, 
I'm  afraid  she  was  taking  it  with  a  petit-verre 
and  a  cigarette.  She  wore  an  exceedingly 
simple  black  frock,  with  a  bunch  of  violets  in 
her  breast,  and  a  hat  with  a  sweeping  black 
feather  and  a  daring  brim.  Her  dark  luxurious 
hair  broke  into  a  riot  of  fluffy  little  curls  about 
her  forehead,  and  thence  waved  richly  away  to 
where  it  was  massed  behind  ;  her  cheeks  glowed 
with  a  lovely  colour  (thanks,  doubtless,  to 
Yorkshire  breezes ;  sweet  are  the  uses  of  ad- 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      25 

versity) ;  her  eyes  sparkled ;  her  lips  curved 
in  a  perpetual  play  of  smiles,  letting  her  deli 
cate  little  teeth  show  themselves  furtively  ;  and 
suddenly  I  realised  that  this  girl,  whom  I  had 
never  thought  of  save  as  one  might  think  of 
one's  younger  sister,  suddenly  I  realised  that 
she  was  a  woman,  and  a  radiantly,  perhaps 
even  a  dangerously  handsome  woman.  I  saw 
suddenly  that  she  was  not  merely  an  attribute, 
an  aspect,  of  another,  not  merely  Alfred  Childe's 
daughter ;  she  was  a  personage  in  herself,  a 
personage  to  be  reckoned  with. 

This  sufficiently  obvious  perception  came 
upon  me  with  such  force,  and  brought  me  such 
emotion,  that  I  dare  say  for  a  little  while  I  sat 
vacantly  staring  at  her,  with  an  air  of  preoccu 
pation.  Anyhow,  all  at  once  she  laughed,  and 
cried  out,  'Well,  when  you  get  back  .  .  .?' 
and,  '  Perhaps,'  she  questioned,  '  perhaps  you 
think  it  polite  to  go  off  wool-gathering  like 
that  ? '  Whereupon  I  recovered  myself  with  a 
start,  and  laughed  too. 

'  But  say  that  you  are  surprised,  say  that  you 
are  glad,  at  least/  she  went  on. 

Surprised !  glad !  But  what  did  it  mean  ? 
What  was  it  all  about  ? 


26  GREY    ROSES 

*  I  couldn't  stand  it  any  longer,  that's  all.     I 
have  come  home.     Oh,  que  c'est  bon,  que  c'est 
bon,  que  c'est  bon  ! ' 

'  And  —  England  ?  —  Yorkshire  ?  —  your 
people  ? ' 

'  Don't  speak  of  it.  It  was  a  bad  dream.  It 
is  over.  It  brings  bad  luck  to  speak  of  bad 
dreams.  I  have  forgotten  it.  I  am  here — in 
Paris — at  home.  Oh,  que  c'est  bon  ! '  And 
she  smiled  blissfully  through  eyes  filled  with 
tears. 

Don't  tell  me  that  happiness  is  an  illusion. 
It  is  her  habit,  if  you  will,  to  flee  before  us  and 
elude  us ;  but  sometimes,  sometimes  we  catch 
up  with  her,  and  can  hold  her  for  long  moments 
warm  against  our  hearts. 

*  Oh,  mon  pere !     It  is  enough — to  be  here, 
where  he  lived,  where  he  worked,  where  he  was 
happy/  Nina  murmured  afterwards. 

She  had  arrived  the  night  before;  she  had 
taken  a  room  in  the  Hdtel  d'Espagne,  in  the 
Rue  de  M^dicis,  opposite  the  Luxembourg 
Garden.  I  was  as  yet  the  only  member  of  the 
old  set  she  had  looked  up.  Of  course  I  knew 
where  she  had  gone  first — but  not  to  cry — to 
kiss  it — to  place  flowers  on  it  She  could  not 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      27 

cry— not  now.  She  was  too  happy,  happy, 
happy.  Oh,  to  be  back  in  Paris,  her  home, 
where  she  had  lived  with  him,  where  every 
stick  and  stone  was  dear  to  her  because  ot 
him  ! 

Then,  glancing  up  at  the  clock,  with  an 
abrupt  change  of  key,  '  Mais  aliens  done,  pares- 
seux  !  You  must  take  me  to  see  the  camarades, 
You  must  take  me  to  see  Chalks.' 

And  in  the  street  she  put  her  arm  through 
mine,  laughing  and  saying,  '  On  nous  croira 
fiances.'  She  did  not  walk,  she  tripped,  she 
all  but  danced  beside  me,  chattering  joyously 
in  alternate  French  and  English.  '  I  could 
stop  and  kiss  them  all — the  men,  the  women, 
the  very  pavement.  Oh,  Paris !  Oh,  these 
good,  gay,  kind  Parisians  !  Look  at  the  sky ! 
Look  at  the  view — down  that  impasse — the  sun 
light  and  shadows  on  the  houses,  the  doorways, 
the  people.  Oh,  the  air !  Oh,  the  smells  !  Que 
c'est  bon — que  je  suis  contente !  Et  dire  que 
j'ai  pass6  cinq  mois,  mais  cinq  grands  mois,  en 
Angleterre.  Ah,  veinard,  you — you  don't  know 
how  you're  blessed.'  Presently  we  found  our 
selves  labouring  knee-deep  in  a  wave  of  black 
pinafores,  and  Nina  had  plucked  her  bunch  of 


28  GREY    ROSES 

violets  from  her  breast,  and  was  dropping  them 
amongst  eager  fingers  and  rosy  cherubic  smiles. 
And  it  was  constantly, '  Tiens,  there's  Madame 
Chose  in  her  kiosque.  Bonjour,  madame.  Vous 
allez  toujours  bien  ? '  and  '  Oh,  look  !  old  Per- 
ronet  standing  before  his  shop  in  his  shirt 
sleeves,  exactly  as  he  has  stood  at  this  hour 
every  day,  winter  or  sammer,  these  ten  years. 
Bonjour,  M'sieu  Perronet.'  And  you  may  be 
sure  that  the  kindly  French  Choses  and  Per- 
ronets  returned  her  greetings  with  beaming 
faces.  'Ah,  mademoiselle,  que  c'est  bon  de 
vous  revoir  ainsi.  Que  vous  avez  bonne  mine  ! ' 
'  It  is  so  strange,'  she  said,  '  to  find  nothing 
changed.  To  think  that  everything  has  gone 
on  quietly  in  the  usual  way.  As  if  I  hadn't 
spent  an  eternity  in  exile ! '  And  at  the  corner 
of  one  street,  before  a  vast  flaunting  '  bazaar,' 
with  a  prodigality  of  tawdry  Oriental  wares 
exhibited  on  the  pavement,  and  little  black 
shopmen  trailing  like  beetles  in  and  out 
amongst  them,  '  Oh,'  she  cried,  '  the  "  Mecque 
du  Quartier  "  !  To  think  that  I  could  weep  for 
joy  at  seeing  the  "  Mecque  du  Quartier  " ! ' 

By  and  by  we  plunged  into  a  dark  hallway, 
climbed  a  long,  unsavoury,  corkscrew  staircase, 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      29 

and  knocked  at  a  door.  A  gruff  voice  having 
answered,  "Trez!'  we  entered  Chalks's  bare, 
bleak,  paint-smelling  studio.  He  was  working 
(from  a  lay-figure)  with  his  back  towards  us  ; 
and  he  went  on  working  for  a  minute  or  two 
after  our  arrival,  without  speaking.  Then  he 
demanded,  in  a  sort  of  grunt, '  Eh  bien,  qu'est 
ce  que  c'est  ? '  always  without  pausing  in  his 
work  or  looking  round.  Nina  gave  two  little 
ahemsy  tense  with  suppressed  mirth ;  and  slowly, 
indifferently,  Chalks  turned  an  absent-minded 
face  in  our  direction.  But,  next  instant,  there 
was  a  shout — a  rush — a  confusion  of  forms  in 
the  middle  of  the  floor — and  I  realised  that  I 
was  not  the  only  one  to  be  honoured  by  a  kiss 
and  an  embrace.  '  Oh,  you're  covering  me  with 
paint,'  Nina  protested  suddenly  ;  and  indeed  he 
had  forgotten  to  drop  his  brush  and  palette, 
and  great  dabs  of  colour  were  clinging  to  her 
cloak.  While  he  was  doing  penance,  scrubbing 
the  garment  with  rags  soaked  in  turpentine,  he 
kept  shaking  his  head,  and  murmuring,  from 
time  to  time,  as  he  glanced  up  at  her, '  Well, 
I'll  be  dumned.' 

'  It's  very  nice  and  polite  of  you,  Chalks,'  she 
said,  by  and  by, '  a  very  graceful  concession  to 


30  GREY    ROSES 

my  sex.  But,  if  you  think  it  would  relieve  you 
once  for  all,  you  have  my  full  permission  to 
pronounce  it  — amned.' 

Chalks  did  no  more  work  that  afternoon  ; 
and  that  evening  quite  twenty  of  us  dined  at 
Madame  Chanve's  ;  and  it  was  almost  like  old 
times. 


VIII. 

'Oh,  yes,'  she  explained  to  me  afterwards, 
'my  uncle  is  a  good  man.  My  aunt  and 
cousins  are  very  good  women.  But  for  me,  to 
live  with  them — pas  possible,  mon  cher.  Their 
thoughts  were  not  my  thoughts,  we  could  not 
speak  the  same  language.  They  disapproved 
of  me  unutterably.  They  suffered  agonies, 
poor  things.  Oh,  they  were  very  kind,  very 
patient.  But — !  My  gods  were  their  devils. 
My  father — my  great,  grand,  splendid  father — 
was  "  poor  Alfred,"  "  poor  uncle  Alfred."  Que 
voulez-vous  ?  And  then — the  life,  the  society ! 
The  parishioners — the  people  who  came  to  tea 
— the  houses  where  we  sometimes  dined !  Are 
you  interested  in  crops  ?  In  the  preservation 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      31 

of  game  ?  In  the  diseases  of  cattle  ?  Olala ! 
(C'est  bien  le  cas  de  s'en  servir,  de  cette 
expression-la.)  Olala,  lala !  And  then — have 
you  ever  been  homesick  ?  Oh,  I  longed,  I 
pined,  for  Paris,  as  one  suffocating  would  long, 
would  die,  for  air.  Enfin,  I  could  not  stand  it 
any  longer.  They  thought  it  wicked  to  smoke 
cigarettes.  My  poor  aunt — when  she  smelt 
cigarette-smoke  in  my  bed-room !  Oh,  her  face! 
I  had  to  sneak  away,  behind  the  shrubbery  at 
the  end  of  the  garden,  for  stealthy  whiffs.  And 
it  was  impossible  to  get  French  tobacco.  At 
last  I  took  the  bull  by  the  horns,  and  fled.  It 
will  have  been  a  terrible  shock  for  them.  But 
better  one  good  blow  than  endless  little  ones  ; 
better  a  lump-sum  than  instalments  with 
interest.' 

But  what  was  she  going  to  do  ?  How  was 
she  going  to  live  ?  For,  after  all,  much  as  she 
loved  Paris,  she  couldn't  subsist  on  its  air  and 
sunshine. 

'  Oh,  never  fear  !  I'll  manage  somehow.  I'll 
not  die  of  hunger,'  she  said  confidently. 


32  GREY    ROSES 


IX. 


And,  sure  enough,  she  managed  very  well. 
She  gave  music  lessons  to  the  children  of  the 
Quarter,  and  English  lessons  to  clerks  and 
shop  girls ;  she  did  a  little  translating  ;  she 
would  pose  now  and  then  for  a  painter  friend — 
she  was  the  original,  for  instance,  of  Norton's 
'  Woman  Dancing,'  which  you  know.  She  even 
— thanks  to  the  employment  by  Chalks  of 
what  he  called  his  '  iry&wence ' — she  even  con 
tributed  a  weekly  column  of  Paris  gossip  to 
the  Palladium^  a  newspaper  published  at  Battle 
Creek,  Michigan,  U.S.A.,  Chalks's  native  town. 
*  Put  in  lots  about  me,  and  talk  as  if  there  were 
only  two  important  centres  of  civilisation  on 
earth,  Battle  Crick  and  Parus,  and  it'll  be  a 
boom,'  Chalks  said.  We  used  to  have  great 
fun,  concocting  those  columns  of  Paris  gossip. 
Nina,  indeed,  held  the  pen  and  cast  a  deciding 
vote  ;  but  we  all  collaborated.  And  we  put  in 
lots  about  Chalks — perhaps  rather  more  than 
he  had  bargained  for.  With  an  irony  (we 
trusted)  too  subtle  to  be  suspected  by  the  good 
people  of  Battle  Creek,  we  would  introduce 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      33 

their  illustrious  fellow-citizen,  casually,  between 
the  Pope  and  the  President  of  the  Republic  ; 
we  would  sketch  him  as  he  strolled  in  the  Boule 
vard  arm-in-arm  with  Monsieur  Meissonier,  as 
he  dined  with  the  Perpetual  Secretary  of  the 
French  Academy,  or  drank  his  bock  in  the 
afternoon  with  the  Grand  Chancellor  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour  ;  we  would  compose  solemn 
descriptive  criticisms  of  his  works,  which  almost 
made  us  die  of  laughing ;  we  would  interview 
him — at  length — about  any  subject ;  we  would 
give  elaborate  bulletins  of  his  health,  and 
brilliant  pen-pictures  of  his  toilets.  Sometimes 
we  would  betroth  him,  marry  him,  divorce  him ; 
sometimes,  when  our  muse  impelled  us  to  a 
particularly  daring  flight,  we  would  insinuate, 
darkly,  sorrowfully,  that  perhaps  the  great 
man's  morals  .  .  .  but  no !  We  were  per 
suaded  that  rumour  accused  him  falsely.  The 
story  that  he  had  been  seen  dancing  at  Bullier's 

with  the  notorious  Duchesse  de  Z was  a 

baseless  fabrication.  Unprincipled?  Oh,  we 
were  nothing  if  not  unprincipled.  And  our 
pleasure  was  so  exquisite,  and  it  worried  our 
victim  so.  '  I  suppose  you  think  it's  funny, 

don't  you?'   he  used  to  ask,  with  a  feint  of 
C 


34  GREY    ROSES 

superior  scorn  which  put  its  fine  flower  to  our 
hilarity.  '  Look  out,  or  you'll  bust,'  he  would 
warn  us,  the  only  unconvulsed  member  present 
'By  gum,  you're  easily  amused.'  We  always 
wrote  of  him  respectfully  as  Mr.  Charles  K. 
Smith  ;  we  never  faintly  hinted  at  his  sobriquet. 
We  would  have  rewarded  liberally,  at  that  time, 
any  one  who  could  have  told  us  what  the  K. 
stood  for.  We  yearned  to  unite  the  cryptic 
word  to  his  surname  by  a  hyphen  ;  the  mere 
abstract  notion  of  doing  so  filled  us  with  fearful 
joy.  Chalks  was  right,  I  dare  say  ;  we  were 
easily  amused.  And  Nina,  at  these  moments 
of  literary  frenzy — I  can  see  her  now  :  her  head 
bent  over  the  manuscript,  her  hair  in  some 
disarray,  a  spiral  of  cigarette-smoke  winding 
ceilingward  from  between  the  fingers  of  her 
idle  hand,  her  lips  parted,  her  eyes  gleaming 
with  mischievous  inspirations,  her  face  pale 
with  the  intensity  of  her  glee.  I  can  see  her 
as  she  would  look  up,  eagerly,  to  listen  to 
somebody's  suggestion,  or  as  she  would  motion 
to  us  to  be  silent,  crying,  '  Attendez — I've  got 
an  idea.'  Then  her  pen  would  dash  swiftly, 

noisily,  over  her  paper  for  a  little,  whilst  we  all 

i 
waited  expectantly  ;  and  at  last  she  would  lean 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      35 

back,  drawing  a  long  breath,  and  tossing  the 
pen  aside,  to  read  her  paragraph  out  to  us. 

In  a  word,  she  managed  very  well,  and  by  no 
means  died  of  hunger.  She  could  scarcely 
afford  Madame  Chanve's  three-franc  table 
d'hote,  it  is  true  ;  but  we  could  dine  modestly 
at  Leon's,  over  the  way,  and  return  to  the  Bleu 
for  coffee, — though,  it  must  be  added,  that 
establishment  no  longer  enjoyed  a  monopoly 
of  our  custom.  We  patronised  it  and  the 
Vachette,  the  Source,  the  Ecoles,  the  Souris, 
indifferently.  Or  we  would  sometimes  spend 
our  evenings  in  Nina's  rooms.  She  lived  in  a 
tremendously  swagger  house  in  the  Avenue  de 
1'Observatoire, — on  the  sixth  floor,  to  be  sure, 
but  *  there  was  a  carpet  all  the  way  up.1  She 
had  a  charming  little  salon,  with  her  own  furni 
ture  and  piano  (the  same  that  had  formerly 
embellished  our  cafe),  and  no  end  of  books, 
pictures,  draperies,  and  pretty  things,  inherited 
from  her  father  or  presented  by  her  friends. 

By  this  time  the  inevitable  had  happened, 
and  we  were  all  in  love  with  her, — hopelessly, 
resignedly  so,  and  without  internecine  rancour, 
for  she  treated  us,  indiscriminately,  with  a 
serene,  impartial,  tolerant,  derision ;  but  we 


36  GREY    ROSES 

were  savagely,  luridly,  jealous  and  suspicious  of 
all  new-comers  and  of  all  outsiders.  If  we  could 
not  win  her,  no  one  else  should ;  and  we 
formed  ourselves  round  her  in  a  ring  of  fire. 
Oh,  the  maddening,  mock-sentimental,  mock- 
sympathetic  face  she  would  pull,  when  one  of 
us  ventured  to  sigh  to  her  of  his  passion  !  The 
way  she  would  lift  her  eyebrows,  and  gaze  at 
you  with  a  travesty  of  pity,  shaking  her  head 
pensively,  and  murmuring, '  Mon  pauvre  ami ! 
Only  fancy ! '  And  then  how  the  imp,  lurking 
in  the  corners  of  her  eyes,  with  only  the  barest 
pretence  of  trying  to  conceal  himself,  would 
suddenly  leap  forth  in  a  peal  of  laughter  !  She 
had  lately  read  Mr  Howells's  '  Undiscovered 
Country,'  and  had  adopted  the  Shakers'  para 
phrase  for  love  :  '  Feeling  foolish.' — '  Feeling 
pretty  foolish  to-day,  air  ye,  gentlemen  ? '  she 
inquired,  mimicking  the  dialect  of  Chalks. 
'  Well,  I  guess  you  just  ain't  feeling  any  more 
foolish  than  you  look.' — If  she  would  but  have 
taken  us  seriously !  And  the  worst  of  it  was 
that  we  knew  she  was  anything  but  tempera 
mentally  cold.  Chalks  formulated  the  poten 
tialities  we  divined  in  her,  when  he  remarked, 
regretfully,  wistfully,  as  he  often  did,  'She 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      37 

could  love  like  Hell.'  Once,  in  a  reckless 
moment,  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  tell  her  this 
pointblank.  '  Oh,  naughty  Chalks  ! '  she  re 
monstrated,  shaking  her  ringer  at  him.  'Do 
you  think  that's  a  pretty  word  ?  But — I  dare 
say  I  could.' 

'All  the  same,  Lord  help  the  man  you 
marry,'  Chalks  continued  gloomily. 

'  Oh,  I  shall  never  marry,'  Nina  cried.  '  Be 
cause,  first,  I  don't  approve  of  matrimony  as  an 
institution.  And  then — as  you  say — Lord  help 
my  husband.  I  should  be  such  an  uncomfort 
able  wife.  So  capricious,  and  flighty,  and 
tantalising,  and  unsettling,  and  disobedient, 
and  exacting,  and  everything.  Oh,  but  a  horrid 
wife  !  No,  I  shall  never  marry.  Marriage  is 
quite  too  out-of-date.  I  shan't  marry ;  but, 
if  I  ever  meet  a  man  and  love  him — ah  ! '  She 
placed  two  fingers  upon  her  lips,  and  kissed 
them,  and  waved  the  kiss  to  the  skies. 

This  fragment  of  conversation  passed  in  the 
Luxembourg  Garden  ;  and  the  three  or  four  of 
us  by  whom  she  was  accompanied  glared 
threateningly  at  our  mental  image  of  that  not- 
impossible  upstart  whom  she  might  some  day 
meet  and  love.  We  were  sure,  of  course,  that 


38  GREY    ROSES 

he  would  be  a  beast ;  we  hated  him  not 
merely  because  he  would  have  cut  us  out  with 
her,  but  because  he  would  be  so  distinctly  our 
inferior,  so  hopelessly  unworthy  of  her,  so 
helplessly  incapable  of  appreciating  her.  I 
think  we  conceived  of  him  as  tall,  with 
drooping  fair  moustaches,  and  contemptibly 
meticulous  in  his  dress.  He  would  probably 
not  be  of  the  Quarter ;  he  would  sneer 
at  us. 

'  He'll  not  understand  her,  he'll  not  respect 
her.  Take  her  peculiar  views.  We  know 
where  she  gets  them.  But  he — he'll  despise 
her  for  them,  at  the  very  time  he's  profiting  by 
'em/  some  one  said. 

Her  peculiar  views  of  the  institution  of  matri 
mony,  the  speaker  meant.  She  had  got  them 
from  her  father.  'The  relations  of  the  sexes 
should  be  as  free  as  friendship,'  he  had  taught 
'  If  a  man  and  a  woman  love  each  other,  it  is 
nobody's  business  but  their  own.  Neither  the 
Law  nor  Society  can,  with  any  show  of  justice, 
interfere.  That  they  do  interfere,  is  a  survival 
of  feudalism,  a  survival  of  the  system  under 
which  the  individual,  the  subject,  had  no  liberty, 
no  rights.  If  a  man  and  a  woman  love  each 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      39 

other,  they  should  be  as  free  to  determine  for 
themselves  the  character,  extent,  and  duration 
of  their  intercourse,  as  two  friends  should  be. 
If  they  wish  to  live  together  under  the  same 
roof,  let  them.  If  they  wish  to  retain  their 
separate  domiciles,  let  them.  If  they  wish  to 
cleave  to  each  other  till  death  severs  them — if 
they  wish  to  part  on  the  morrow  of  their  union 
— let  them,  by  heaven.  But  the  couple  who  go 
before  a  priest  or  a  magistrate,  and  bind  them 
selves  in  ceremonial  marriage,  are  serving  to 
perpetuate  tyranny,  are  insulting  the  dignity  of 
human  nature.'  Such  was  the  gospel  which 
Nina  had  absorbed  (don't,  for  goodness'  sake, 
imagine  that  I  approve  of  it  because  I  cite  it), 
and  which  she  professed  in  entire  good  faith. 
We  felt  that  the  coming  man  would  misappre 
hend  both  it  and  her — though  he  would  not 
hesitate  to  make  a  convenience  of  it.  Ugh, 
the  cynic ! 

We  formed  ourselves  round  her  in  a  ring  of 
fire,  hoping  to  frighten  the  beast  away.  But 
we  were  miserably,  fiercely,  anxious,  suspicious, 
jealous.  We  were  jealous  of  everything  in  the 
shape  of  a  man  that  came  into  any  sort  of 
contact  with  her  :  of  the  men  who  passed  her 


40  GREY    ROSES 

in  the  street  or  rode  with  her  in  the  omnibus  ; 
of  the  little  employes  de  commerce  to  whom  she 
gave  English  lessons  ;  of  everybody.  I  fancy 
we  were  always  more  or  less  uneasy  in  our 
minds  when  she  was  out  of  our  sight  Who 
could  tell  what  might  be  happening?  With 
those  lips  of  hers,  those  eyes  of  hers — oh,  we 
knew  how  she  could  love  :  Chalks  had  said  it. 
Who  could  tell  what  might  already  have 
happened  ?  Who  could  tell  that  the  coming 
man  had  not  already  come  ?  She  was  entirely 
capable  of  concealing  him  from  us.  Sometimes, 
in  the  evening,  she  would  seem  absent,  pre 
occupied.  How  could  we  be  sure  that  she 
wasn't  thinking  of  him  ?  Savouring  anew  the 
hours  she  had  passed  with  him  that  very  day  ? 
Or  dreaming  of  those  she  had  promised  him 
for  to-morrow  ?  If  she  took  leave  of  us — might 
he  not  be  waiting  to  join  her  round  the  corner  ? 
If  she  spent  an  evening  away  from  us.  ... 

And  she — she  only  laughed  ;  laughed  at  our 
jealousy,  our  fears,  our  precautions,  as  she 
laughed  at  our  hankering  flame.  Not  a  laugh 
that  reassured  us,  though ;  an  inscrutable, 
enigmatic  laugh,  that  might  have  covered  a 
multitude  of  sins.  She  had  taken  to  calling  us 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      41 

collectively  Loulou.  '  Ah,  le  pauv'  Loulou — so 
now  he  has  the  pretension  to  be  jealous.'  Then 
she  would  be  interrupted  by  a  paroxysm  of 
laughter;  after  which,  '  Oh,  qu'il  est  drole,'  she 
would  gasp.  '  Pourvu  qu'il  ne  devienne  pas 
genant ! ' 

It  was  all  very  well  to  laugh  ;  but  some  of 
us,  our  personal  equation  quite  apart,  could  not 
help  feeling  that  the  joke  was  of  a  precarious 
quality,  that  the  situation  held  tragic  possi 
bilities.  A  young  and  attractive  girl,  by  no 
means  constitutionally  insusceptible,  and  im 
bued  with  heterodox  ideas  of  marriage — alone 
in  the  Latin  Quarter. 


X. 


I  have  heard  it  maintained  that  the  man  has 
yet  to  be  born,  who,  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  if  he 
comes  to  think  the  matter  over,  won't  find 
himself  at  something  of  a  loss  to  conceive  why 
any  given  woman  should  experience  the  passion 
of  love  for  any  other  man ;  that  a  woman's 
choice,  to  all  men  save  the  chosen,  is,  by  its 
very  nature,  as  incomprehensible  as  the  postu- 


42  GREY    ROSES 

lates  of  Hegel.  But,  in  Nina's  case,  even  when 
I  regard  it  from  this  distance  of  time,  I  still 
feel,  as  we  all  felt  then,  that  the  mystery  was 
more  than  ordinarily  obscure.  We  had  fancied 
ourselves  prepared  for  anything ;  the  only 
thing  we  weren't  prepared  for  was  the  thing 
that  befell.  We  had  expected  'him'  to  be 
offensive,  and  he  wasn't.  He  was,  quite  simply, 
insignificant.  He  was  a  South  American,  a 
Brazilian,  a  member  of  the  School  of  Mines  :  a 
poor,  undersized,  pale,  spiritless,  apologetic 
creature,  with  rather  a  Teutonic-looking  name, 
Ernest  Mayer.  His  father,  or  uncle,  was 
Minister  of  Agriculture,  or  Commerce,  or  some 
thing,  in  his  native  land  ;  and  he  himself  was 
attached  in  some  nominal  capacity  to  the 
Brazilian  Legation,  in  the  Rue  de  Teheran, 
whence,  on  state  occasions,  he  enjoyed  the 
privilege  of  enveloping  his  meagre  little  person 
in  a  very  'gorgeous  diplomatic  uniform.  He 
was  beardless,  with  vague  features,  timid,  light- 
blue  eyes,  and  a  bluish,  anaemic  skin.  In 
manner  he  was  nervous,  tremulous,  deprecatory 
— perpetually  bowing,  wriggling,  stepping  back 
to  let  you  pass,  waving  his  hands,  palms  out 
ward,  as  if  to  protest  against  giving  you  trouble. 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      43 

And  in  speech — upon  my  word,  I  don't  think 
I  ever  heard  him  compromise  himself  by  any 
more  dangerous  assertion  than  that  the  weather 
was  fine,  or  he  wished  you  good-day.  For  the 
most  part  he  listened  mutely,  with  a  flickering, 
perfunctory  smile.  From  time  to  time,  with  an 
air  of  casting  fear  behind  him  and  dashing  into 
the  imminent,  deadly  breach,  he  would  hazard 
an  '  Ah,  oui,'  or  a  '  Pas  mal.'  For  the  rest,  he 
played  the  piano  prettily  enough,  wrote  colour 
less,  correct  French  verse,  and  was  reputed  to 
be  an  industrious  if  not  a  brilliant  student — 
what  we  called  un  serieux. 

It  was  hard  to  believe  that  beautiful,  sump 
tuous  Nina  Childe,  with  her  wit,  her  humour, 
her  imagination,  loved  this  neutral  little  fellow; 
yet  she  made  no  secret  of  doing  so.  We 
tried  to  frame  a  theory  that  would  account 
for  it.  '  It's  the  maternal  instinct,'  suggested 
one.  '  It's  her  chivalry,'  said  another ;  '  she's 
the  sort  of  woman  who  could  never  be  very 
violently  interested  by  a  man  of  her  own  size. 
She  would  need  one  she  could  look  up  to,  or 
else  one  she  could  protect  and  pat  on  the  head.' 
* "  God  be  thanked,  the  meanest  of  His  creatures 
boasts  two  soul-sides,  one  to  face  the  world 


44  GREY    ROSES 

with,  one  to  show  a  woman  when  he  loves  her," ' 
quoted  a  third.  'Perhaps  Coco' — we  had 
nicknamed  him  Coco — 'has  luminous  qualities 
that  we  don't  dream  of,  to  which  he  gives  the 
rein  when  they're  d  deux' 

Anyhow,  if  we  were  mortified  that  she  should 
have  preferred  such  a  one  to  us,  we  were  relieved 
to  think  that  she  hadn't  fallen  into  the  clutches 
of  a  blackguard,  as  we  had  feared  she  would. 
That  Coco  was  a  blackguard  we  never  guessed. 
We  made  the  best  of  him,  because  we  had  to 
choose  between  doing  that  and  seeing  less  of 
Nina:  in  time,  I  am  afraid — such  is  the  influence 
of  habit — we  rather  got  to  like  him,  as  one  gets 
to  like  any  innocuous,  customary  thing.  And 
if  we  did  not  like  the  situation — for  none  of  us, 
whatever  might  have  been  our  practice,  shared 
Nina's  hereditary  theories  anent  the  sexual 
conventions — we  recognised  that  we  couldn't 
alter  it,  and  we  shrugged  our  shoulders  re 
signedly,  trusting  it  might  be  no  worse. 

And  then,  one  day,  she  announced, '  Ernest 
and  I  are  going  to  be  married.'  And  when  we 
cried  out  why,  she  explained  that — despite  her 
own  conviction  that  marriage  was  a  barbarous 
institution — she  felt,  in  the  present  state  of 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      45 

public  opinion,  people  owed  legitimacy  to  their 
children.  So  Ernest,  who,  according  to  both 
French  and  Brazilian  law,  could  not,  at  his  age, 
marry  without  his  parents'  consent,  was  going 
home  to  procure  it  He  would  sail  next  week  ; 
he  would  be  back  before  three  months.  Ernest 
sailed  from  Lisbon  ;  and  the  post,  a  day  or  two 
after  he  was  safe  at  sea,  brought  Nina  a  letter 
from  him.  It  was  a  wild,  hysterical,  remorse 
ful  letter,  in  which  he  called  himself  every  sort 
of  name.  He  said  his  parents  would  never 
dream  of  letting  him  marry  her.  They  were 
Catholics,  they  were  very  devout,  they  had 
prejudices,  they  had  old-fashioned  notions. 
Besides,  he  had  been  as  good  as  affianced  to  a 
lady  of  their  election  ever  since  he  was  born. 
He  was  going  home  to  marry  his  second  cousin. 


XL 


Shortly  after  the  birth  of  Camille  I  had  to  go 
to  London,  and  it  was  nearly  a  year  before  I 
came  back  to  Paris.  Nina  was  looking  better 
than  when  I  had  left,  but  still  in  nowise  like 
her  old  self — pale  and  worn  and  worried,  with 


46  GREY    ROSES 

a  smile  that  was  the  ghost  of  her  former  one. 
She  had  been  waiting  for  my  return,  she  said, 
to  have  a  long  talk  with  me.  '  I  have  made  a 
little  plan.  I  want  you  to  advise  me.  Of 
course  you  must  advise  me  to  stick  to  it' 

And  when  we  had  reached  her  lodgings,  and 
were  alone  in  the  salon, '  It  is  about  Camille,  it 
is  about  her  bringing-up,'  she  explained.  '  The 
Latin  Quarter  ?  It  is  all  very  well  for  you,  for 
me ;  but  for  a  growing  child  ?  Oh,  my  case 
was  different ;  I  had  my  father.  But  Camille  ? 
Restaurants,  cafe's,  studios,  the  Boul'  Miche, 
and  this  little  garret — do  they  form  a  whole 
some  environment  ?  Oh,  no,  no — I  am  not  a 
renegade.  I  am  a  Bohemian ;  I  shall  always 
be ;  it  is  bred  in  the  bone.  But  my  daughter 
— ought  she  not  to  have  the  opportunity,  at 
least,  of  being  different,  of  being  like  other 
girls?  You  see,  I  had  my  father;  she  will 
have  only  me.  And  I  distrust  myself;  I  have 
no  "system."  Shall  I  not  do  better,  then,  to 
adopt  the  system  of  the  world  ?  To  give  her 
the  conventional  education,  the  conventional 
"  advantages  "  ?  A  home,  what  they  call  home 
influences.  Then,  when  she  has  grown  up,  she 
can  choose  for  herself.  Besides,  there  is  the 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      47 

question  of  francs  and  centimes.  I  have  been 
able  to  earn  a  living  for  myself,  it  is  true.  But 
even  that  is  more  difficult  now ;  I  can  give  less 
time  to  work  ;  I  am  in  debt.  And  we  are  two  ; 
and  our  expenses  must  naturally  increase  from 
year  to  year.  And  I  should  like  to  be  able  to 
put  something  aside.  Hand-to-mouth  is  a  bad 
principle  when  you  have  a  growing  child.' 

After  a  little  pause  she  went  on,  '  So  my 
problem  is,  first,  how  to  earn  our  livelihood, 
and  secondly,  how  to  make  something  like  a 
home  for  Camille,  something  better  than  this 
tobacco-smoky,  absinthe-scented  atmosphere 
of  the  Latin  Quarter.  And  I  can  see  only  one 
way  of  accomplishing  the  two  things.  You 
will  smile — but  I  have  considered  it  from  every 
point  of  view.  I  have  examined  myself,  my 
own  capabilities.  I  have  weighed  all  the 
chances.  I  wish  to  take  a  flat,  in  another 
quarter  of  the  town,  near  the  Etoile  or  the 
Pare  Monceau,  and — open  a  pension.  There  is 
my  plan.' 

I  had  a  much  simpler  and  pleasanter  plan  of 
my  own,  but  of  that,  as  I  knew,  she  would 
hear  nothing.  I  did  not  smile  at  hers,  how 
ever  ;  though  I  confess  it  was  not  easy  to 


48  GREY    ROSES 

imagine  madcap  Nina  in  the  role  of  a  landlady, 
regulating  the  accounts  and  presiding  at  the 
table  of  a  boarding-house.  I  can't  pretend 
that  I  believed  there  was  the  slightest  likeli 
hood  of  her  filling  it  with  success.  But  I  said 
nothing  to  discourage  her ;  and  the  fact  that 
she  is  rich  to-day  proves  how  little  I  divined 
the  resources  of  her  character.  For  the 
boarding-house  she  kept  was  an  exceedingly 
good  boarding-house  ;  she  showed  herself  the 
most  practical  of  mistresses  ;  and  she  pros 
pered  amazingly.  Jeanselme,  whose  father 
had  recently  died,  leaving  him  a  fortune,  lent 
her  what  money  she  needed  to  begin  with ;  she 
took  and  furnished  a  flat  in  the  Avenue  de 
1'Alma ;  and  I — I  feel  quite  like  an  historical 
personage  when  I  remember  that  I  was  her 
first  boarder.  Others  soon  followed  me,  though, 
for  she  had  friends  amongst  all  the  peoples  of 
the  earth — English  and  Americans,  Russians, 
Italians,  Austrians,  even  Roumanians  and  Ser 
vians,  as  well  as  French ;  and  each  did  what 
he  could  to  help.  At  the  end  of  a  year  she 
overflowed  into  the  flat  above ;  then  into  that 
below;  then  she  acquired  the  lease  of  the 
entire  house.  She  worked  tremendously,  she 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL     49 

was  at  it  early  and  late,  her  eyes  were  every 
where  ;  she  set  an  excellent  table ;  she  em 
ployed  admirable  servants ;  and  if  her  prices 
were  a  bit  stiff,  she  gave  you  your  money's 
worth,  and  there  were  no  '  surprises.'  It  was 
comfortable  and  quiet ;  the  street  was  bright ; 
the  neighbourhood  convenient.  You  could  dine 
in  the  common  salle-a-manger  if  you  liked,  or 
in  your  private  sitting-room.  And  you  never 
saw  your  landlady  except  for  purposes  of 
business.  She  lived  apart,  in  the  entresol, 
alone  with  Camille  and  her  body -servant 
Jeanne.  There  was  the  'home'  she  had  set 
out  to  make. 

Meanwhile  another  sort  of  success  was 
steadily  thrusting  itself  upon  her — she  cer 
tainly  never  went  out  of  her  way  to  seek  it ; 
she  was  much  too  busy  to  do  that.  Such  of 
her  old  friends  as  remained  in  Paris  came  fre 
quently  to  see  her,  and  new  friends  gathered 
round  her.  She  was  beautiful,  she  was  intelli 
gent,  responsive,  entertaining.  In  her  salon, 
on  a  Friday  evening,  you  would  meet  half  the 
lions  that  were  at  large  in  the  town — authors, 
painters,  actors,  actresses,  deputies,  even  an 

occasional  Cabinet  minister.     Red  ribbons  and 
D 


50  GREY    ROSES 

red  rosettes  shone  from  every  corner  of  the 
room.  She  had  become  one  of  the  oligarchs 
of  la  haute  Boheme,  she  had  become  one  of  the 
celebrities  of  Paris.  It  would  be  tiresome  to 
count  the  novels,  poems,  songs,  that  were  dedi 
cated  to  her,  the  portraits  of  her,  painted  or 
sculptured,  that  appeared  at  the  Mirlitons  or 
the  Palais  de  1'Industrie.  Numberless  were 
the  partis  who  asked  her  to  marry  them  (I 
know  one,  at  least,  who  has  returned  to  the 
charge  again  and  again),  but  she  only  laughed, 
and  vowed  she  would  never  marry.  I  don't 
say  that  she  has  never  had  her  fancies,  her 
experiences  ;  but  she  has  consistently  scoffed 
at  marriage.  At  any  rate,  she  has  never 
affected  the  least  repentance  for  what  some 
people  would  call  her  'fault.'  Her  ideas  of 
right  and  wrong  have  undergone  very  little 
modification.  She  was  deceived  in  her  esti 
mate  of  the  character  of  Ernest  Mayer,  if  you 
please;  but  she  would  indignantly  deny  that 
there  was  anything  sinful,  anything  to  be 
ashamed  of,  in  her  relations  with  him.  And  if, 
by  reason  of  them,  she  at  one  time  suffered  a 
good  deal  of  pain,  I  am  sure  she  accounts 
Camille  an  exceeding  great  compensation 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      51 

That  Camilla  is  her  child  she  would  scorn  to 
make  a  secret.  She  has  scorned  to  assume 
the  conciliatory  title  of  Madame.  As  plain 
Mademoiselle,  with  a  daughter,  you  must  take 
her  or  leave  her.  And,  somehow,  all  this  has 
not  seemed  to  make  the  faintest  difference  to 
her  clientele,  not  even  to  the  primmest  of  the 
English.  I  can't  think  of  one  of  them  who  did 
not  treat  her  with  deference,  like  her,  and  re 
commend  her  house. 

But  her  house  they  need  recommend  no 
more,  for  she  has  sold  it.  Last  spring,  when 
I  was  in  Paris,  she  told  me  she  was  about 
to  do  so.  '  Ouf !  I  have  lived  with  my  nose 
to  the  grindstone  long  enough.  I  am  going 
to  "  retire." '  What  money  she  had  saved  from 
season  to  season,  she  explained,  she  had 
entrusted  to  her  friend  Baron  c  ***** 
for  speculation.  *  He  is  a  wizard,  and  so  I 
am  a  rich  woman.  I  shall  have  an  income 
of  something  like  three  thousand  pounds, 
mon  cher !  Oh,  we  will  roll  in  it  I  have 
had  ten  bad  years — ten  hateful  years.  You 
don't  know  how  I  have  hated  it  all,  this 
business,  this  drudgery,  this  cut-and-dried, 
methodical  existence — moi,  enfant  de  Bo 


52  GREY    ROSES 

heme!  But,  enfin,  it  was  obligatory.  Now 
we  will  change  all  that  Nous  reviendrons  a 
nos  premieres  amours.  I  shall  have  ten  good 
years — ten  years  of  barefaced  pleasure.  Then 
— I  will  range  myself — perhaps.  There  is 
the  darlingest  little  house  for  sale,  a  sort 
of  chalet,  built  of  red  brick,  with  pointed 
windows  and  things,  in  the  Rue  de  Lisbonne. 
I  shall  buy  it — furnish  it — decorate  it.  Oh, 
you  will  see.  I  shall  have  my  carriage,  I 
shall  have  toilets,  I  shall  entertain,  I  shall 
give  dinners — olala!  No  more  boarders,  no 
more  bores,  cares,  responsibilities.  Only  my 
friends  and — life  !  I  feel  like  one  emerging 
from  ten  years  in  the  galleys,  ten  years  of  penal 
servitude.  To  the  Pension  Childe — bonsoir ! ' 

'That's  all  very  well  for  you,'  her  listener 
complained  sombrely.  'But  for  me?  Where 
shall  I  stop  when  I  come  to  Paris  ? ' 

1  With  me.  You  shall  be  my  guest.  I  will 
kill  you  if  you  ever  go  elsewhere.  You  shall 
pass  your  old  age  in  a  big  chair  in  the 
best  room,  and  Camille  and  I  will  nurse  your 
gout  and  make  herb-tea  for  you. 

'  And  I  shall  sit  and  think  of  what  might 
have  been.' 


THE    BOHEMIAN    GIRL      53 

'Yes,  we'll  indulge  all  your  little  foibles. 
You  shall  sit  and  "feel  foolish" — from  dawn 
to  dewy  eve.' 


XII 

If  you  had  chanced  to  be  walking  in  the  Bois- 
de-Boulogne  this  afternoon,  you  might  have 
seen  a  smart  little  basket-phaeton  flash  past, 
drawn  by  two  glossy  bays,  and  driven  by  a 
woman — a  woman  with  sparkling  eyes,  a 
lovely  colour,  great  quantities  of  soft  dark 
hair,  and  a  figure — 

'Helas,  mon  pere,  la  taille  d'une  deesse'— 

a  smiling  woman,  in  a  wonderful  blue-grey 
toilet,  grey  driving  gloves,  and  a  bold-brimmed 
grey-felt  hat  with  waving  plumes.  And  in 
the  man  beside  her  you  would  have  recognised 
your  servant.  You  would  have  thought  me 
in  great  luck,  perhaps  you  would  have  envied 
me.  But — esse,  quam  videri  I — I  would  I 
were  as  enviable  as  I  looked 


MERCEDES 

WHEN  I  was  a  child  some  one  gave  me  a 
family  of  white  mice.  I  don't  remember  how 
old  I  was,  I  think  about  ten  or  eleven  ;  but  I 
remember  very  clearly  the  day  I  received  them. 
It  must  have  been  a  Thursday,  a  half-holiday, 
for  I  had  come  home  from  school  rather  early 
in  the  afternoon.  Alexandre,  dear  old  ruddy 
round-faced  Alexandre,  who  opened  the  door 
for  me,  smiled  in  a  way  that  seemed  to 
announce, '  There's  a  surprise  in  store  for  you, 
sir.'  Then  my  mother  smiled  too,  a  smile,  I 
thought,  of  peculiar  promise  and  interest.  After 
I  had  kissed  her  she  said,  'Come  into  the 
dining-room.  There's  something  you  will  like.' 
Perhaps  I  concluded  it  would  be  something  to 
eat.  Anyhow,  all  agog  with  curiosity,  I 
followed  her  into  the  dining  -  room  —  and 
Alexandre  followed  me,  anxious  to  take  part 
in  the  rejoicing.  In  the  window  stood  a 


MERCEDES  55 

big  cage,  enclosing  the  family  of  white 
mice. 

I  remember  it  as  a  very  big  cage  indeed ; 
no  doubt  I  should  find  it  shrunken  to  quite 
moderate  dimensions  if  I  could  see  it  again. 
There  were  three  generations  of  mice  in  it :  a 
fat  old  couple,  the  founders  of  the  race,  dozing 
phlegmatically  on  their  laurels  in  a  corner ; 
then  a  dozen  medium-sized,  slender  mice,  trim 
and  youthful-looking,  rushing  irrelevantly  hither 
and  thither,  with  funny  inquisitive  little  faces  ; 
and  then  a  squirming  mass  of  pink  things,  like 
caterpillars,  that  were  really  infant  mice,  new 
born.  They  didn't  remain  infants  long,  though. 
In  a  few  days  they  had  put  on  virile  togas  of 
white  fur,  and  were  scrambling  about  the  cage 
and  nibbling  their  food  as  independently  as  their 
elders.  The  rapidity  with  which  my  mice  multi 
plied  and  grew  to  maturity  was  a  constant  source 
of  astonishment  to  me.  It  seemed  as  if  every 
morning  I  found  a  new  litter  of  young  mice  in 
the  cage — though  how  they  had  effected  an  en 
trance  through  the  wire  gauze  that  lined  it  was 
a  hopeless  puzzle — and  these  would  have  become 
responsible,  self-supporting  mice  in  no  time. 

My  mother  told  me  that  somebody  had  sent 


$6  GREY    ROSES 

me  this  soul-stirring  present  from  the  country, 
and  I  dare  say  I  was  made  to  sit  down  and 
write  a  letter  of  thanks.  But  I'm  ashamed  to 
own  I  can't  remember  who  the  giver  was.  I 
have  a  vague  notion  that  it  was  a  lady,  an 
elderly  maiden-lady — Mademoiselle  .  .  .  some 
thing  that  began  with  P —  who  lived  near 
Tours,  and  who  used  to  come  to  Paris  once  or 
twice  a  year,  and  always  brought  me  a  box  of 
prunes. 

Alexandre  carried  the  cage  into  my  play 
room,  and  set  it  up  against  the  wall.  I  stationed 
myself  in  front  of  it,  and  remained  there  all  the 
rest  of  the  afternoon,  gazing  in,  entranced.  To 
watch  their  antics,  their  comings  and  goings, 
their  labours  and  amusements,  to  study  their 
shrewd,  alert  physiognomies,  to  wonder  about 
their  feelings,  thoughts,  intentions,  to  try  to 
divine  the  meaning  of  their  busy  twittering 
language — it  was  such  keen,  deep  delight.  Of 
course  I  was  an  anthropomorphist,  and  read  a 
great  deal  of  human  nature  into  them  ;  other 
wise  it  wouldn't  have  been  such  fun.  I  dragged 
myself  reluctantly  away  when  I  was  called  to 
dinner.  It  was  hard  that  evening  to  apply  my 
self  to  my  school-books.  Before  I  went  to  bed 


MERCEDES  57 

I  paid  them  a  parting  visit ;  they  were  huddled 
together  in  their  nest  of  cotton-wool,  sleeping 
soundly.  And  I  was  up  at  an  unheard-of 
hour  next  morning,  to  have  a  bout  with  them 
before  going  to  school.  I  found  Alexandre,  in 
his  nightcap  and  long  white  apron,  occupied 
with  the  soins  de  proprett,  as  he  said.  He 
cleaned  out  the  cage,  put  in  fresh  food  and 
water,  and  then,  pointing  to  the  fat  old  couple, 
the  grandparents,  who  stopped  lazily  abed, 
sitting  up  and  rubbing  their  noses  together, 
whilst  their  juniors  scampered  merrily  about 
their  affairs,  '  Tiens !  On  dirait  Monsieur  et 
Madame  Denis,'  he  cried.  I  felt  the  apposite- 
ness  of  his  allusion  ;  and  the  old  couple  were 
forthwith  officially  denominated  Monsieur  and 
Madame  Denis,  for  their  resemblance  to  the 
hero  and  heroine  of  the  song — though  which 
was  Monsieur,  and  which  Madame,  I'm  not 
sure  that  I  ever  clearly  knew. 

It  was  a  little  after  this  that  I  was  taken  for 
the  first  time  in  my  life  to  the  play.  I  fancy 
the  theatre  must  have  been  the  Porte  St. 
Martin  ;  at  any  rate,  it  was  a  theatre  in  the 
Boulevard,  and  towards  the  East,  for  I  re 
member  the  long  drive  we  had  to  reach  it 


58  GREY    ROSES 

And  the  piece  was  The  Count  of  Monte  Cristo. 
In  my  memory  the  adventure  shines,  of  course, 
as  a  vague  blur  of  light  and  joy  ;  a  child's  first 
visit  to  the  play,  and  that  play  The  Count  of 
Monte  Cristo !  It  was  all  the  breath-taking 
pleasantness  of  romance  made  visible,  audible, 
actual.  A  vague  blur  of  light  and  joy,  from 
which  only  two  details  separate  themselves. 
First,  the  prison  scene,  and  an  aged  man,  with 
a  long  white  beard,  moving  a  great  stone  from 
the  wall ;  then — the  figure  of  Mercedes.  I  went 
home  terribly  in  love  with  Mercedes.  Surely 
there  are  no  such  grandes  passions  in  maturer 
life  as  those  helpless,  inarticulate  ones  we  burn 
in  secret  with,  before  our  teens ;  surely  we  never 
love  again  so  violently,  desperately,  consumedly. 
Anyhow,  I  went  home  terribly  in  love  with 
Mercedes.  And — do  all  children  lack  humour? 
— I  picked  out  the  prettiest  young  ladyish- 
looking  mouse  in  my  collection,  cut  off  her 
moustaches,  adopted  her  as  my  especial  pet, 
and  called  her  by  the  name  of  my  dea  certe. 

All  of  my  mice  by  this  time  had  become 
quite  tame.  They  had  plenty  to  eat  and  drink, 
and  a  comfortable  home,  and  not  a  care  in  the 
world  ;  and  familiarity  with  their  master  had 


MERCEDES  59 

bred  assurance  ;  and  so  they  had  become  quite 
tame,and  shamefully,abominablylazy.  Luxury, 
we  are  taught,  was  ever  the  mother  of  sloth. 
I  could  put  my  hand  in  amongst  them,  and  not 
one  would  bestir  himself  the  littlest  bit  to 
escape  me.  Mercedes  and  I  were  inseparable. 
I  used  to  take  her  to  school  with  me  every 
day ;  she  could  be  more  conveniently  and 
privately  transported  than  a  lamb.  Each  lycten 
had  a  desk  in  front  of  his  form,  and  she  would 
spend  the  school-hours  in  mine,  I  leaving  the 
lid  raised  a  little,  that  she  might  have  light  and 
air.  One  day,  the  usher  having  left  the  room 
for  a  moment,  I  put  her  down  on  the  floor, 
thereby  creating  a  great  excitement  amongst 
my  fellow-pupils,  who  got  up  from  their  places 
and  formed  an  eager  circle  round  her.  Then 
suddenly  the  usher  came  back,  and  we  all 
hurried  to  our  seats,  while  he,  catching  sight  of 
Mercedes,  cried  out,  '  A  mouse !  A  white 
mouse !  Who  dares  to  bring  a  white  mouse  to 
the  class  ? '  And  he  made  a  dash  for  her. 
But  she  was  too  quick,  too  'cute,  for  '  the  likes 
of  Monsieur  le  Pion.  She  gave  a  jump,  and 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  had  disappeared  up 
my  leg,  under  my  trousers.  The  usher  searched 


60  GREY    ROSES 

high  and  low  for  her,  but  she  prudently  remained 
in  her  hiding-place ;  and  thus  her  life  was 
saved,  for,  when  he  had  abandoned  his  in 
effectual  chase,  he  announced, '  I  should  have 
wrung  her  neck.'  I  turned  pale  to  imagine  the 
doom  she  had  escaped  as  by  a  hair's-breadth. 
'  It  is  useless  to  ask  which  of  you  brought  her 
here,'  he  continued.  '  But  mark  my  words :  if 
ever  I  find  a  mouse  again  in  the  class  /  will 
wring herneck T  And  yet,  in  private  life,  this 
bloodthirsty  pion  was  a  quite  gentle,  kindly, 
underfed,  underpaid,  shabby,  struggling  fellow, 
with  literary  aspirations,  who  would  not  have 
hurt  a  fly. 

The  secrets  of  a  schoolboy's  pocket !  I  once 
saw  a  boy  surreptitiously  angling  in  Kensing 
ton  Gardens,  with  a  string  and  a  bent  pin. 
Presently  he  landed  a  fish,  a  fish  no  bigger 
than  your  thumb  perhaps,  but  still  a  fish. 
Alive  and  wet  and  flopping  as  it  was,  he 
slipped  it  into  his  pocket.  I  used  to  carry 
Mercedes  about  in  mine.  One  evening,  when 
I  put  in  my  hand  to  take  her  out,  I  discovered 
to  my  bewilderment  that  she  was  not  alone. 
There  were  four  little  pink  miles  of  infant  mice 
clinging  to  her. 


MERCEDES  61 

I  had  enjoyed  my  visit  to  the  theatre  so 
much  that  at  the  jour  de  Van  my  father  in 
cluded  a  toy-theatre  among  my  presents.  It 
had  a  real  curtain  of  green  baize,  that  would 
roll  up  and  down,  and  beautiful  coloured 
scenery  that  you  could  shift,  and  footlights, 
and  a  trap-door  in  -the  middle  of  the  stage ; 
and  indeed  it  would  have  been  altogether  per 
fect,  except  for  the  Company.  I  have  since 
learned  that  this  is  not  infrequently  the  case 
with  theatres.  My  company  consisted  of  paste 
board  men  and  women  who,  as  artists,  struck 
me  as  eminently  unsatisfactory.  They  couldn't 
move  their  arms  or  legs,  and  they  had  such 
stolid,  uninteresting  faces.  I  don't  know  how 
it  first  occurred  to  me  to  turn  them  all  off,  and 
fill  their  places  with  my  mice.  Mercedes,  of 
course,  was  leading  lady;  Monsieur  and 
Madame  Denis  were  the  heavy  parents;  and 
a  gentlemanlike  young  mouse  named  Leander 
was  jeune  premier.  Then,  in  my  leisure,  they 
used  to  act  the  most  tremendous  plays.  I  was 
stage-manager,  prompter,  playwright,  chorus, 
and  audience,  placing  the  theatre  before  a 
looking-glass,  so  that,  though  my  duties  kept 
me  behind,  I  could  peer  round  the  edge,  and 


62  GREY    ROSES 

watch  the  spectacle  as  from  the  front.  I  would 
invent  the  lines  and  deliver  them,  but,  that  my 
illusion  might  be  the  more  complete,  I  would 
change  my  voice  for  each  personage.  The 
lines  tried  hard  to  be  verses ;  no  doubt  they 
were  vers  libres.  At  any  rate,  they  were  mouth- 
filling  and  sonorous.  The  first  play  we  at 
tempted,  I  need  hardly  say,  was  Le  Comte  de 
Monte  Cristo,  such  version  of  it  as  I  could  recon 
struct  from  memory.  That  had  rather  a  long 
run.  Then  I  dramatised  Aladdin  and  the  Won- 
derful  Lamp^Paul  et  Virginie,  Quentin  Durward, 
and  La  Dame  de  Monsoreau.  Mercedes  made  a 
charming  Diane,  Leander  a  brilliant  and  dashing 
Bussy ;  Monsieur  Denis  was  cast  for  the  role 
of  Frere  Gorenflot ;  and  a  long,  thin,  cadave 
rous-looking  mouse,  Don  Quichotte  by  name, 
somewhat  inadequately  represented  Chicot 
We  began,  as  you  see,  with  melodrama ;  pre 
sently  we  descended  to  light  comedy,  playing 
Les  Memoir es  d'tm  Ane^Jean  qui  rit,  and  other 
works  of  the  immortal  Madame  de  Segur. 
And  then  at  last  we  turned  a  new  leaf,  and 
became  naturalistic.  We  had  never  heard  of 
the  naturalist  school,  though  Monsieur  Zola  had 
already  published  some  volumes  of  the  Rougon- 


MERCEDES  63 

Macquart ;  but  ideas  are  in  the  air ;  and  we, 
for  ourselves,  discovered  the  possibilities  of 
naturalism  simultaneously,  as  it  were,  with  the 
acknowledged  apostle  of  that  form  of  art.  We 
would  impersonate  the  characters  of  our  own 
world — our  schoolfellows  and  masters,  our 
parents,  servants,  friends — and  carry  them 
through  experiences  and  situations  derived 
from  our  impressions  of  real  life,  Perhaps  we 
rather  led  them  a  dance ;  and  I  daresay  those 
we  didn't  like  came  in  for  a  good  deal  of  re 
tributive  justice.  It  was  a  little  universe,  of 
which  we  were  the  arch-arbiters,  our  will  the 
final  law. 

I  don't  know  whether  all  children  lack 
humour;  but  I'm  sure  no  grown-up  author- 
manager  can  take  his  business  more  seriously 
than  I  took  mine.  Oh,  I  enjoyed  it  hugely ; 
the  hours  I  spent  at  it  were  enraptured  hours ; 
but  it  was  grim,  grim  earnest.  After  a  while  I 
began  to  long  for  a  less  subjective  public,  a 
more  various  audience.  I  would  summon  the 
servants,  range  them  in  chairs  at  one  end  of 
the  room,  conceal  myself  behind  the  theatre, 
and  spout  the  play  with  fervid  solemnity. 
And  they  would  giggle,  and  make  flippant 


64  GREY    ROSES 

commentaries,  and  at  my  most  impassioned 
climaxes  burst  into  guffaws.  My  mice,  as  has 
been  said,  were  overfed  and  lazy,  and  I  used  to 
have  to  poke  them  through  their  parts  with 
sticks  from  the  wings ;  but  this  was  a  detail 
which  a  superior  imagination  should  have 
accepted  as  one  of  the  conventions  of  the  art 
It  made  the  servants  laugh,  however;  and 
when  I  would  step  to  the  front  in  person,  and, 
with  tears  in  my  eyes,  beseech  them  to  be 
sober,  they  would  but  laugh  the  louder.  '  Bless 
you,  sir,  they're  only  mice — ce  ne  sont  que  des 
saurz's,'  the  cook  called  out  on  one  such  occasion. 
She  meant  it  as  an  apology  and  a  consolation, 
but  it  was  the  unkindest  cut  of  all.  Only  mice, 
indeed  !  To  me  they  had  been  a  young  gentle 
man  and  lady  lost  in  the  Desert  of  Sahara, 
near  to  die  for  the  want  of  water,  and  about  to 
be  attacked,  captured,  and  sold  into  slavery  by 
a  band  of  Bedouin  Arabs.  Ah,  well,  the  artist 
must  steel  himself  to  meet  with  indifference  or 
derision  from  the  public,  to  be  ignored,  misun 
derstood,  or  jeered  at ;  and  to  rely  for  his  real, 
his  legitimate,  reward  on  the  pleasure  he  finds 
in  his  work. 

And  now  there  befell  a  great  change  in  my 


MERCEDES  6$ 

life.  Our  home  in  Paris  was  broken  up,  and 
we  moved  to  St.  Petersburg.  It  was  impossible 
to  take  my  mice  with  us ;  their  cage  would 
have  hopelessly  complicated  our  impedimenta. 
So  we  gave  them  to  the  children  of  our  con 
cierge.  Mercedes,  however,  I  was  resolved  I 
would  not  part  with,  and  I  carried  her  all  the 
way  to  the  Russian  capital  by  hand.  In  my 
heart  I  was  looking  to  her  to  found  another 
family — she  had  so  frequently  become  a  mother 
in  the  past.  But  month  succeeded  month,  and 
she  for  ever  disappointed  me,  and  at  last  I 
abandoned  hope.  In  solitude  and  exile  Mer 
cedes  degenerated  sadly  ;  got  monstrously  fat ; 
too  indolent  to  gnaw,  let  her  teeth  grow  to  a 
preposterous  length ;  and  in  the  end  died  of  a 
surfeit  of  smetana. 

When  I  returned  to  Paris,  at  the  age  of 
twenty,  tofaire  mon  droit  in  the  Latin  Quarter, 
I  paid  a  visit  to  our  old  house,  and  discovered 
the  same  old  concierge  in  the  loge.  I  asked 
her  about  the  mice,  and  she  told  me  her  chil 
dren  had  found  the  care  of  them  such  a  bother 
that  at  first  they  had  neglected  them,  and  at 
last  allowed  them  to  escape.  'They  took  to 
the  walls,  and  for  a  long  time  afterwards, 


66  GREY    ROSES 

Monsieur,  the  mice  of  this  neighbourhood  were 
pied.  To  this  day  they  are  of  a  paler  hue  than 
elsewhere,' 


A  BROKEN  LOOKING-GLASS 

HE  climbed  the  three  flights  of  stone  stairs, 
and  put  his  key  into  the  lock ;  but  before  he 
turned  it,  he  stopped — to  rest,  to  take  breath. 
On  the  door  his  name  was  painted  in  big 
white  letters,  Mr.  Richard  Dane.  It  is  always 
silent  in  the  Temple  at  midnight ;  to-night 
the  silence  was  dense,  like  a  fog.  It  was 
Sunday  night ;  and  on  Sunday  night,  even 
within  the  hushed  precincts  of  the  Temple, 
one  is  conscious  of  a  deeper  hush. 

When  he  had  lighted  the  lamp  in  his 
sitting-room,  he  let  himself  drop  into  an  arm 
chair  before  the  empty  fireplace.  He  was 
tired,  he  was  exhausted.  Yet  nothing  had 
happened  to  tire  him.  He  had  dined,  as  he 
always  dined  on  Sundays,  with  the  Rodericks, 
in  Cheyne  Walk ;  he  had  driven  home  in 
a  hansom.  There  was  no  reason  why  he 
should  be  tired.  But  he  was  tired.  A  deadly 


68  GREY    ROSES 

lassitude  penetrated  his  body  and  his  spirit,  like 
a  fluid.  He  was  too  tired  to  go  to  bed. 

'  I  suppose  I  am  getting  old,'  he  thought. 

To  a  second  person  the  matter  would  have 
appeared  not  one  of  supposition  but  of 
certainty,  not  of  progression  but  of  accom 
plishment  Getting  old  indeed  ?  But  he 
was  old.  It  was  an  old  man,  grey  and 
wrinkled  and  wasted,  who  sat  there,  limp, 
sunken  upon  himself,  in  his  easy-chair.  In 
years,  to  be  sure,  he  was  under  sixty;  but 
he  looked  like  a  man  of  seventy-five. 

'  I  am  getting  old,  I  suppose  I  am  getting 
old.' 

And  vaguely,  dully,  he  contemplated  his 
life,  spread  out  behind  him  like  a  misty 
landscape,  and  thought  what  a  failure  it  had 
been.  What  had  it  come  to?  What  had 
it  brought  him  ?  What  had  he  done  or 
won  ?  Nothing,  nothing.  It  had  brought  him 
nothing  but  old  age,  solitude,  disappointment, 
and,  to-night  especially,  a  sense  of  fatigue 
and  apathy  that  weighed  upon  him  like  a 
suffocating  blanket.  On  a  table,  a  yard  or 
two  away,  stood  a  decanter  of  whisky,  with 
some  soda-water  bottles  and  tumblers ;  he 


A  BROKEN  LOOKING-GLASS      69 

looked  at  it  with  heavy  eyes,  and  he  knew 
that  there  was  what  he  needed.  A  little 
whisky  would  strengthen  him,  revive  him, 
and  make  it  possible  for  him  to  bestir  himself 
and  undress  and  go  to  bed.  But  when  he 
thought  of  rising  and  moving  to  pour  the 
whisky  out,  he  shrank  from  that  effort  as 
from  an  Herculean  labour ;  no — he  was  too 
tired.  Then  his  mind  went  back  to  the  friends 
he  had  left  in  Chelsea  half  an  hour  ago ;  it 
seemed  an  indefinably  long  time  ago,  years 
and  years  ago ;  they  were  like  blurred  phan 
toms,  dimly  remembered  from  a  remote 
past. 

Yes,  his  life  had  been  a  failure;  total, 
miserable,  abject.  It  had  come  to  nothing ; 
its  harvest  was  a  harvest  of  ashes.  If  it  had 
been  a  useful  life,  he  could  have  accepted  its 
unhappiness ;  if  it  had  been  a  happy  life, 
he  could  have  forgiven  its  uselessness ;  but 
it  had  been  both  useless  and  unhappy.  He 
had  done  nothing  for  others,  he  had  won 
nothing  for  himself.  Oh,  but  he  had  tried, 
he  had  tried.  When  he  had  left  Oxford  people 
expected  great  things  of  him ;  he  had  expected 
great  things  of  himself.  He  was  admitted 


70  GREY    ROSES 

to  be  clever,  to  be  gifted ;  he  was  ambitious, 
he  was  in  earnest.  He  wished  to  make  a 
name,  he  wished  to  justify  his  existence 
by  fruitful  work.  And  he  had  worked  hard. 
He  had  put  all  his  knowledge,  all  his  talent, 
all  his  energy,  into  his  work ;  he  had  not 
spared  himself;  he  had  passed  laborious  days 
and  studious  nights.  And  what  remained  to 
show  for  it?  Three  or  four  volumes  upon 
Political  Economy,  that  had  been  read  in 
their  day  a  little,  discussed  a  little,  and  then 
quite  forgotten — superseded  by  the  books  of 
newer  men.  'Pulped,  pulped,'  he  reflected 
bitterly.  Except  for  a  stray  dozen  of  copies 
scattered  here  and  there — in  the  British 
Museum,  in  his  College  library,  on  his  own 
bookshelves — his  published  writings  had  by 
this  time  (he  could  not  doubt)  met  with 
the  common  fate  of  unappreciated  literature, 
and  been  '  pulped.' 

'Pulped — pulped;  pulped — pulped.'  The 
hateful  word  beat  rhythmically  again  and 
again  in  his  tired  brain ;  and  for  a  little 
while  that  was  all  he  was  conscious  of. 

So  much  for  the  work  of  his  life.  And 
for  the  rest  ?  The  play  ?  The  living  ?  Oh, 


A  BROKEN  LOOKING-GLASS     71 

he  had  nothing  to  recall  but  failure.  It  had 
sufficed  that  he  should  desire  a  thing,  for 
him  to  miss  it ;  that  he  should  set  his  heart 
upon  a  thing,  for  it  to  be  removed  beyond  the 
sphere  of  his  possible  acquisition.  It  had  been 
so  from  the  beginning  ;  it  had  been  so  always. 
He  sat  motionless  as  a  stone,  and  allowed  his 
thoughts  to  drift  listlessly  hither  and  thither 
in  the  current  of  memory.  Everywhere  they 
encountered  wreckage,  derelicts ;  defeated 
aspirations,  broken  hopes.  Languidly  he  en 
visaged  these.  He  was  too  tired  to  resent,  to 
rebel.  He  even  found  a  certain  sluggish 
satisfaction  in  recognising  with  what  un 
varying  harshness  destiny  had  treated  him,  in 
resigning  himself  to  the  unmerited. 

He  caught  sight  of  his  hand,  lying  flat  and 
inert  upon  the  brown  leather  arm  of  his  chair. 
His  eyes  rested  on  it,  and  for  the  moment  he 
forgot  everything  else  in  a  sort  of  torpid  study 
of  it  How  white  it  was,  how  thin,  how 
withered ;  the  nails  were  parched  into  minute 
corrugations  ;  the  veins  stood  out  like  dark 
wires ;  the  skin  hung  loosely  on  it,  and  had  a 
dry  lustre :  an  old  man's  hand.  He  gazed  at 
it  fixedly,  till  his  eyes  closed  and  his  head  fell 


72  GREY    ROSES 

forward.  But  he  was  not  sleepy,  he  was  only 
tired  and  weak. 

He  raised  his  head  with  a  start  and  changed 
his  position.  He  felt  cold  ;  but  to  endure  the 
cold  was  easier  than  to  get  up,  and  put  some 
thing  on,  or  go  to  bed. 

How  silent  the  world  was ;  how  empty  his 
room.  An  immense  feeling  of  solitude,  of 
isolation,  fell  upon  him.  He  was  quite  cut  off 
from  the  rest  of  humanity  here.  If  anything 
should  happen  to  him,  if  he  should  need  help 
of  any  sort,  what  could  he  do  ?  Call  out  ?  But 
who  would  hear  ?  At  nine  in  the  morning  the 
porter's  wife  would  come  with  his  tea.  But  if 
anything  should  happen  to  him  in  the  mean 
time?  There  would  be  nothing  for  it  but  to 
wait  till  nine  o'clock. 

Ah,  if  he  had  married,  if  he  had  had  child 
ren,  a  wife,  a  home  of  his  own,  instead  of  these 
desolate  bachelor  chambers ! 

If  he  had  married,  indeed  !  It  was  his  sor 
row's  crown  of  sorrow  that  he  had  not  married, 
that  he  had  not  been  able  to  marry,  that  the 
girl  he  had  wished  to  marry  wouldn't  have 
him.  Failure  ?  Success  ?  He  could  have 
accounted  failure  in  other  things  a  trifle,  he 


A  BROKEN  LOOKING-GLASS      73 

could  have  laughed  at  what  the  world  calls 
failure,  if  Elinor  Lynd  had  been  his  wife.  But 
that  was  the  heart  of  his  misfortune,  she 
wouldn't  have  him. 

He  had  met  her  for  the  first  time  when  he 
was  a  lad  of  twenty,  and  she  a  girl  of  eighteen. 
He  could  see  her  palpable  before  him  now :  her 
slender  girlish  figure,  her  bright  eyes,  her 
laughing  mouth,  her  warm  brown  hair  curling 
round  her  forehead.  Oh,  how  he  had  loved 
her.  For  twelve  years  he  had  waited  upon 
her,  wooed  her,  hoped  to  win  her.  But  she 
had  always  said,  '  No — I  don't  love  you.  I 
am  very  fond  of  you ;  I  love  you  as  a  friend ; 
we  all  love  you  that  way — my  mother,  my 
father,  my  sisters.  But  I  can't  marry  you.' 
However,  she  married  no  one  else,  she  loved  no 
one  else :  and  for  twelve  years  he  was  an  ever- 
welcome  guest  in  her  father's  house ;  and  she 
would  talk  with  him,  play  to  him,  pity  him  ; 
and  he  could  hope.  Then  she  died.  He  called 
one  day,  and  they  said  she  was  ill.  After  that 
there  came  a  blank  in  his  memory — a  gulf, 
full  of  blackness  and  redness,  anguish  and  con 
fusion  ;  and  then  a  sort  of  dreadful  sudden 
calm,  when  they  told  him  she  was  dead. 


74  GREY    ROSES 

He  remembered  standing  in  her  room,  after 
the  funeral,  with  her  father,  her  mother,  her 
sister  Elizabeth.  He  remembered  the  pale 
daylight  that  filled  it,  and  how  orderly  and 
cold  and  forsaken  it  all  looked.  And  there 
was  her  bed,  the  bed  she  had  died  in ;  and 
there  her  dressing-table,  with  her  combs  and 
brushes  ;  and  there  her  writing-desk,  her  book 
case.  He  remembered  a  row  of  medicine 
bottles  on  the  mantelpiece ;  he  remembered 
the  fierce  anger,  the  hatred  of  them,  as  if  they 
were  animate,  that  had  welled  up  in  his  heart 
as  he  looked  at  them,  because  they  had  failed 
to  do  their  work. 

'You  will  wish  to  have  something  that  was 
hers,  Richard,'  her  mother  said.  '  What  would 
you  like  ? ' 

On  her  dressing-table  there  was  a  small 
looking-glass,  in  an  ivory  frame.  He  asked  if 
he  might  have  that,  and  carried  it  away  with 
him.  She  had  looked  into  it  a  thousand  times, 
no  doubt ;  she  had  done  her  hair  in  it ;  it  had 
reflected  her,  enclosed  her,  contained  her.  He 
could  almost  persuade  himself  that  something 
of  her  must  remain  in  it  To  own  it  was  like 
owning  something  of  herself.  He  carried  it 


A  BROKEN  LOOKING-GLASS     75 

home  with  him,  hugging  it  to  his  side  with  a 
kind  of  passion. 

He  had  prized  it,  he  prized  it  still,  as  his 
dearest  treasure  ;  the  looking-glass  in  which 
her  face  had  been  reflected  a  thousand  times; 
the  glass  that  had  contained  her,  known  her ; 
in  which  something  of  herself,  he  felt,  must 
linger.  To  handle  it,  look  at  it,  into  it,  behind 
it,  was  like  holding  a  mystic  communion  with 
her  ;  it  gave  him  an  emotion  that  was  infinitely 
sweet  and  bitter,  a  pain  that  was  dissolved  in 
joy. 

The  glass  lay  now,  folded  in  its  ivory  case, 
on  the  chimney-shelf  in  front  of  him.  That 
was  its  place ;  he  always  kept  it  on  his 
chimney-shelf,  so  that  he  could  see  it  whenever 
he  glanced  round  his  room.  He  leaned  back 
in  his  chair,  and  looked  at  it ;  for  a  long  time 
his  eyes  remained  fixed  upon  it.  *  If  she  had 
married  me,  she  wouldn't  have  died.  My  love, 
my  care,  would  have  healed  her.  She  could 
not  have  died.'  Monotonously,  automatically, 
the  phrase  repeated  itself  over  and  over  again 
in  his  mind,  while  his  eyes  remained  fixed  on 
the  ivory  case  into  which  her  looking-glass  was 
folded.  It  was  an  effect  of  his  fatigue,  no 


76  GREY    ROSES 

doubt,  that  his  eyes,  once  directed  upon  an 
object,  were  slow  to  leave  it  for  another ;  that  a 
phrase  once  pronounced  in  his  thought  had  this 
tendency  to  repeat  itself  over  and  over  again. 

But  at  last  he  roused  himself  a  little,  and 
leaning  forward,  put  his  hand  out  and  up,  to 
take  the  glass  from  the  shelf.  He  wished  to 
hold  it,  to  touch  it  and  look  into  it  As  he 
lifted  it  towards  him,  it  fell  open,  the  mirror 
proper  being  fastened  to  a  leather  back,  which 
was  glued  to  the  ivory,  and  formed  a  hinge. 
It  fell  open  ;  and  his  grasp  had  been  insecure  ; 
and  the  jerk  as  it  opened  was  enough.  It 
slipped  from  his  fingers,  and  dropped  with  a 
crash  upon  the  hearthstone. 

The  sound  went  through  him  like  a  physical 
pain.  He  sank  back  in  his  chair,  and  closed  his 
eyes.  His  heart  was  beating  as  after  a  mighty 
physical  exertion.  He  knew  vaguely  that  a 
calamity  had  befallen  him ;  he  could  vaguely 
imagine  the  splinters  of  shattered  glass  at  his 
feet  But  his  physical  prostration  was  so  great 
as  to  obliterate,  to  neutralise,  emotion.  He 
felt  very  cold.  He  felt  that  he  was  being 
hurried  along  with  terrible  speed  through  dark 
ness  and  cold  air.  There  was  the  continuous 


A  BROKEN  LOOKING-GLASS      77 

roar  of  rapid  motion  in  his  ears,  a  faint,  dizzy 
bewilderment  in  his  head.  He  felt  that  he 
was  trying  to  catch  hold  of  things,  to  stop  his 
progress,  but  his  hands  closed  upon  emptiness  ; 
that  he  was  trying  to  call  out  for  help,  but  he 
could  make  no  sound.  On — on — on,  he  was 
being  whirled  through  some  immeasurable 
abyss  of  space. 

*  *  *  * 

'Ah,  yes,  he's  dead,  quite  dead,'  the  doctor 
said.  '  He  has  been  dead  some  hours.  He 
must  have  passed  away  peacefully,  sitting  here 
in  his  chair.' 

'Poor  gentleman,'  said  the  porter's  wife. 
'  And  a  broken  looking-glass  beside  him.  Oh, 
it's  a  sure  sign,  a  broken  looking-glass.' 


THE    REWARD   OF  VIRTUE 

HE  was  one  of  the  institutions  of  the  Latin 
Quarter,  one  of  the  least  admirable.  He 
haunted  the  Boulevard  St.  Michel,  hung  round 
the  cafes,  begged  of  the  passing  stranger,  picked 
up  cigarette-ends,  and  would,  at  a  pinch,  run 
errands,  or  do  odd  jobs. 

With  his  sallow,  wrinkled  skin,  his  jungle  of 
grey  beard,  his  thick  grey  hair,  matted  and 
shiny,  covering  his  ears  and  falling  about  his 
shoulders,  he  was  scarcely  an  attractive-looking 
person.  Besides,  he  had  lost  an  eye ;  and  its 
empty  socket  irresistibly  drew  your  gaze — an 
abhorrent  vacuum.  His  clothes  would  be  the 
odds  and  ends  of  students'  offcasts,  in  the  last 
stages  of  disintegration.  He  had  a  chronic 
stoop  ;  always  aimed  his  surviving  eye  obliquely 
at  you,  from  a  bent  head ;  and  walked  with  a 
sort  of  hang-dog  shuffle  that  seemed  a  general 
self-denunciation. 


THE  REWARD   OF  VIRTUE      79 

Where  he  slept,  whether  under  a  roof  or  on 
the  pavement,  and  when,  were  among  his 
secrets.  No  matter  how  late  or  how  early  you 
were  abroad,  you  would  be  sure  to  encounter 
Bibi,  wide-awake,  somewhere  in  the  Boul' 
Miche,  between  the  Luxembourg  and  the  Rue 
des  Ecoles,  That  was  his  beat.  Perhaps  one 
of  the  benches  was  his  home. 

He  lived  in  a  state  of  approximate  intoxica 
tion.  I  never  drew  near  to  him  without  getting 
a  whiff  of  alcohol,  yet  I  never  saw  him  radically 
drunk.  His  absorbent  capacity  must  have 
been  tremendous.  It  is  certain  he  spent  all 
the  sous  he  could  collect  for  liquids  (he  never 
wasted  money  upon  food ;  he  knew  where  to 
go  for  crusts  of  bread  and  broken  meat ;  the 
back  doors  of  restaurants  have  their  pensioners), 
and  if  invited  to  drink  as  the  guest  of  another, 
he  would  drain  tumbler  after  tumbler  continu 
ously,  until  his  entertainer  stopped  him,  and 
would  appear  no  further  over-seas  at  the  end 
than  at  the  outset.  There  was  something 
pathetic  in  his  comparative  sobriety,  like  an 
unfulfilled  aspiration. 

He  was  one  of  the  institutions  of  the  Quarter, 
one  of  the  notabilities.  It  was  a  matter  of 


8o  GREY    ROSES 

pride  (I  can't  think  why)  to  be  on  terms  of  hail- 
fellowship  with  him,  on  terms  to  thee-and-thou 
him,  and  call  him  by  his  nick-name,  Bibi,  Bibi 
Ragotit :  a  sobriquet  that  he  had  come  by  long 
before  my  time,  and  whose  origin  I  never  heard 
explained.  It  seemed  sufficiently  disrespectful, 
but  he  accepted  it  cheerfully,  and  would  often, 
indeed,  employ  it  in  place  of  the  personal  pro 
noun  in  referring  to  himself.  '  You're  not  going 
to  forget  Bibi — you'll  not  forget  poor  old  Bibi 
Ragofit  ? '  would  be  his  greeting  on  the  jour  de 
fan,  for  instance. 

I  have  said  that  he  would  run  errands  or  do 
odd  jobs.  The  business  with  which  people 
charged  him  was  not  commonly  of  a  nature  to 
throw  lustre  upon  either  agent  or  principal. 
He  would  do  a  student's  dirty  work,  even  an 
Mudiante's,  in  a  part  of  Paris  where  work  to  be 
accounted  dirty  must  needs  be  very  dirty  work 
indeed.  The  least  ignominious  service  one  used 
to  require  of  him  was  to  act  as  intermediary 
with  the  pawn-shop,  the  clou ;  a  service  that  he 
performed  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  his  clients, 
for,  what  with  unbounded  impudence  and  a 
practice  of  many  years,  he  knew  (as  the  French 
slang  goes)  how  to  make  the  nail  bleed  We 


THE   REWARD   OF  VIRTUE       81 

trusted  him  with  our  valuables  and  our  money 
though  it  was  of  record  that  he  had  once  '  done 
time'  for  theft.  But  his  victim  had  been  a 
bourgeois  from  across  the  river  ;  we  were  con 
fident  he  would  deal  honourably  by  a  fellow 
Quarternion — he  had  the  esprit  de  corps. 

It  was  Bibi  in  his  social  aspect,  however,  not 
in  his  professional,  who  especially  interested  us. 
It  was  very  much  the  fashion  to  ask  him  to 
join  the  company  at  a  cafe"  table,  to  offer  him 
libations,  and  to  '  draw '  him — make  him  talk. 
He  would  talk  of  any  subject :  of  art,  literature, 
politics  ;  of  life  and  morals  ;  of  the  news  of  the 
day.  He  would  regale  us  with  anecdotes  of 
persons,  places,  events  ;  he  had  outlasted  many 
generations  of  students,  and  had  hob-and- 
nobbed  in  their  grub-period  with  men  who  had 
since  become  celebrities,  as  he  was  now  hob- 
and-nobbing  with  us.  He  was  quite  shameless, 
quite  without  reverence  for  himself  or  others ; 
his  conversation  was  apt  to  be  highly-flavoured, 
scandalous,  slanderous,  and  redundant  with  am 
biguous  jests ;  yet — what  made  it  fascinating 
and  tragical — it  was  unmistakably  the  conver 
sation  of  an  educated  man.  His  voice  was  soft, 
his  accent  cultivated,  his  sentences  were  nicely 


82  GREY    ROSES 

chiselled.  He  knew  the  mot  juste,  the  happy 
figure,  the  pat  allusion.  His  touch  was  light ; 
his  address  could  be  almost  courtly,  so  that,  on 
suddenly  looking  up,  you  would  feel  a  vague 
surprise  to  behold  in  the  speaker,  not  a  polished 
man  of  the  world  in  his  dress-suit,  but  this 
beery  old  one-eyed  vagabond  in  tatters.  It 
was  strange  to  witness  his  transitions.  At  one 
moment  he  would  be  holding  high  discourse 
of  Goethe,  and  translating  illustrative  passages 
into  classic  French  ;  at  the  next,  whining  about 
la  dhhe,  and  begging  for  a  petite  saleti  de  vingt 
sous,  in  the  cant  of  the  Paris  gutters.  Or,  from 
an  analysis  of  the  character  of  some  conspicu 
ous  personage  he  had  known,  he  would  break 
into  an  indecent  song,  or  pass  to  an  interchange 
of  mildewed  chaff  with  Gigolette. 

Yes,  he  was  a  gentleman.  This  disreputable 
old  man,  whose  grey  hairs,  far  from  making 
him  venerable,  but  emphasised  his  sodden  de 
gradation  ;  this  tipsy,  filthy,  obscene  old  man  ; 
this  gaol-bird,  this  doer  of  dirty  work,  this 
pandar,  beggar,  outcast,  who  bore  without 
offence  such  a  title  of  contempt  as  Bibi  Ragout, 
was  a  fallen  gentleman,  the  wreck  of  something 
that  had  once  been  noble. 


THE   REWARD   OF  VIRTUE      83 

More  than  the  fragmentary  outline  of  his 
history  we  did  not  know.  We  knew  that  he 
was  a  Russian  ;  that  his  name  was  Kasghine ; 
that  he  had  started  in  life  as  an  officer  in  the 
Russian  army  ;  that  many  years  ago,  for  crimes 
conjectural,  he  had  fled  his  country ;  and  that 
long  before  our  day  he  had  already  gravitated 
to  where  we  found  him,  the  mud  of  the  Boule 
vard  St.  Michel. 

For  crimes  conjectural.  Some  of  us  believed 
them  to  have  been  political,  and  fancied  that 
we  had  in  Bibi  a  specimen  of  the  decayed 
Nihilist.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  he  often 
proclaimed  himself  a  socialist,  this  seemed  to 
bear  some  colour  of  probability  ;  but  against 
it  argued  the  circumstance  that  of  the 
members  of  that  little  clan  of  Russian  refugees 
which  inhabits  the  southern  borderland  of  the 
Latin  Quarter,  not  one  would  have  aught 
to  say  to  Bibi.  They  gave  him  the  widest 
of  wide  berths,  and  when  questioned  as  to 
their  motives,  would  only  shrug  their  shoulders, 
and  answer  that  he  was  a  disgraceful  old  person, 
a  drunken  reprobate,  whom,  the  wonder  was 
not  that  they  avoided,  but  that  any  decent 
people  could  tolerate.  This  sounded  plans- 


84  GREY    ROSES 

ible ;  still  we  felt  that  if  his  crimes  had  been 
political,  they  might  have  regarded  him  with 
more  indulgence. 

Of  Bibi  himself  it  was  equally  futile  to 
inquire.  There  was  one  subject  on  which 
he  would  never  touch — his  previous  con 
dition — his  past,  before  he  came  to  be  what 
we  saw.  'Yes,  I  am  a  gentleman.  I  am 
Captain  Kasghine.  I  am  a  gentleman  in 
allotropic  form ' ;  that  was  as  much  as  I 
ever  heard  him  say.  He  enjoyed  cloaking 
himself  in  mystery,  he  enjoyed  the  curiosity 
it  drew  upon  him  ;  but  perhaps  he  had  some 
remnants  of  pride,  some  embers  of  remorse, 
some  little  pain  and  shame,  as  well. 

Of  the  other  legends  afloat,  one  ran  to 
the  effect  that  he  had  murdered  his  wife  ;  a 
second,  that  he  had  poisoned  the  husband  of  a 
lady  friend  ;  a  third,  that  he  had  shown  the 
white  feather  in  battle  ;  a  fourth,  that  he  had 
cheated  at  cards.  Bibi  would  neither  admit 
nor  deny  any  of  these  imputations,  nor  would 
he  manifest  the  faintest  resentment  when  they 
were  discussed  in  his  presence.  He  would 
parry  them,  smiling  complaisantly :  and  (if 
it  be  considered  that  they  were  all,  as  it 


THE   REWARD   OF  VIRTUE       85 

turned  out,  abominably  false)  that  seems  to 
show  better  than  anything  else  to  what 
abysmal  depths  the  man  had  sunk.  Perhaps 
it  shows  also,  incidentally,  how  very  heartless 
and  unimaginative  young  people  in  the  Latin 
Quarter  used  to  be.  I  have  seen  Bibi 
swagger ;  I  have  seen  him  sullen,  insolent, 
sarcastic  ;  I  have  seen  him  angry,  I  have 
heard  him  swear  ;  but  anything  like  honestly 
indignant  I  never  saw  him. 

I  remember  one  night  in  the  Cafe*  de  la 
Source,  when  Fil  de  Fer  had  been  treating 
him  to  brandy  and  trying  to  get  him  to  tell 
his  story ;  I  remember  his  suddenly  turning 
his  one  eye  in  the  direction  of  us  men,  and 
launching  himself  upon  a  long  flight  of  rhetoric. 
I  can  see  him  still — his  unwashed  red  hand 
toying  with  the  stem  of  his  liqueur-glass,  or 
rising  from  time  to  time  to  push  his  hair  from 
his  forehead,  over  which  it  dangled  in  soggy 
wisps,  while,  in  a  dinner-table  tone  of  voice,  he 
uttered  these  somewhat  surprising  sentiments. 

'You  would  be  horrified,  you  others,  lads 
of  twenty,  with  your  careers  before  you, — 
you  would  be  horrified  if  you  thought  it 
possible  that  you  might  end  your  days  like 


86  GREY    ROSES 

Bibi,  would  you  not?  You  wish  to  walk  a 
clean  path}  to  prosper,  to  be  respectable,  to 
wear  sweet  linen,  to  die  honoured,  regretted. 
And  yet,  believe  me,  we  poor  devils  who  fail, 
who  fall,  who  sink  to  the  bottom,  we  have 
our  compensation.  We  see  vastly  more  of 
the  realities  of  life  than  those  do  who  succeed 
and  rise  to  the  top.  We  have  an  experience 
that  is  more  essential,  more  significant.  We 
get  the  real  flavour  of  life.  We  sweat  in  the 
mire ;  we  drink  the  lees.  But  the  truth  is  in 
the  mire ;  the  real  flavour  is  in  the  lees.  Oh, 
we  have  our  compensation.  We  wear  rags, 
we  eat  scraps  fit  for  dogs,  we  sleep  under  the 
arches  of  bridges.  We  lie  in  gaols,  we  are 
hustled  by  the  police,  we  are  despised  by  all 
men.  If  you  offer  us  drink,  and  stop  to 
gossip  with  us  for  a  moment,  you  only  do 
so  to  please  yourselves  with  the  spectacle  of 
our  infamy,  our  infirmity,  our  incongruity. 
We  have  lost  all  hope,  all  self-respect.  We 
are  ships  that  have  come  to  grief,  that  are 
foundering,  that  will  presently  go  down.  Yet 
we  are  not  altogether  to  be  pitied :  we  know 
life.  To  the  respectable  man,  the  prosperous, 
life  shows  herself  only  in  the  world,  decently 


THE   REWARD   OF  VIRTUE      87 

attired :  we  know  her  at  home  in  her  nudity. 
For  him  she  has  manners,  a  good  behaviour, 
a  society  smile ;  with  us  she  is  frankly  herself 
— brutal,  if  you  please,  corrupt  with  disease 
and  vice,  sordid,  profane,  lascivious,  but 
genuine.  She  is  kind  to  him,  but  hypocritical, 
affecting  scruples,  modesties,  pieties,  a  heart 
and  conscience,  attitudinising,  blushing  false 
blushes,  weeping  crocodile  tears ;  she  is  cruel 
to  us,  but  sincere.  She  is  at  her  ease  with  us 
— unashamed.  She  shows  us  her  thousand 
moods.  She  doesn't  trouble  to  keep  her 
secrets  from  us.  She  throws  off  the  cloak  that 
hid  her  foulness,  the  boot  that  constrained  her 
cloven  hoof.  She  gives  free  play  to  her 
appetites.  We  know  her. 

'  Here  is  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  life,'  he  went 
on,  extending  his  open  hand.  '  The  respectable 
man  but  smells  its  rind ;  I  eat  deep,  taste  the 
core.  The  smell  is  sweet,  perhaps  ;  the  taste 
is  deathly  bitter.  But  even  so  ?  He  that  eats 
of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  life  shares  the  vision 
of  the  gods.  He  gazes  upon  the  naked  face  of 
truth.  I  don't  pretend  that  the  face  of  truth  is 
beautiful.  It  is  hideous  beyond  imagination. 
All  hate,  all  savagery,  all  evil,  glare  from  it, 


88  GREY    ROSES 

and  all  uncleanness  is  upon  it.  But  it  is  the 
face  of  truth  ;  the  sight  of  it  gives  an  ultimate, 
a  supreme  satisfaction. 

'  Say  what  you  will,  at  the  end  of  life  the 
important  thing  is  to  have  lived.  Well,  when 
all  is  over,  and  the  prosperous  man  and  I  lie 
equal  in  the  article  of  death,  our  fortunes,  con 
ditions,  outlooks  at  last  for  once  the  same,  our 
results  the  same,  I  shall  have  lived,  I  shall  have 
seen,  I  shall  have  understood,  a  thousandfold 
more  than  he.  I  shall  have  known  life  in  her 
intimacy ;  he  will  have  had  but  a  polite 
acquaintance  with  her.' 

The  hour  for  Bibi  to  put  this  philosophy  to 
the  test  was  nearer  than  he  suspected.  He 
used  to  describe  himself  as  '  thoroughly  cured 
and  seasoned/  and  to  predict  that  he  would 
'last  a  good  while  yet.'  But,  one  day  in 
December,  a  subject  of  remark  in  the  BouF 
Miche  was  Bibi's  absence  ;  and  before  nightfall 
the  news  went  abroad  that  he  had  been  found 
on  the  turf,  under  a  tree,  in  the  Avenue  de 
1'Observatoire,  dead  from  a  coup  de  sang,  and 
that  he  was  now  lying  exposed  to  the  gaze  of 
the  curious  in  the  little  brick  house  behind 
Notre  Dame. 


THE   REWARD   OF  VIRTUE      89 

A  meeting  of  students  was  called,  at  which 
it  was  resolved  to  give  Bibi  a  decent  funeral ; 
and  in  order  that  his  friends  who  had  crossed 
the  river  might  have  an  opportunity  of  assisting 
at  it,  a  lettre  de  fairs  part  was  published  in  the 
newspapers.  The  Committee  who  had  these 
matters  in  charge  made  an  attempt  to  get  a 
Pope  from  the  Russian  Church  to  officiate;  but 
the  holy  men  were  scandalised  by  the  request, 
and  refused  it  with  contumely.  So  a  civil 
funeral  was  the  best  that  could  be  achieved. 

On  a  drizzling,  dismal  December  morning, 
then,  we  formed  ourselves  in  a  procession  of 
two  abreast,  and  starting  from  the  Place  St. 
Michel,  followed  Bibi  up  his  familiar  Boulevard 
to  the  Cemetery  of  Montparnasse ;  and  men 
who  would  have  spurned  him  yesterday,  bared 
their  heads  as  he  passed,  and  women  crossed 
themselves  and  muttered  prayers.  We  must 
have  been  about  a  hundred  strong,  and  quite  a 
quarter  of  our  numbers  came  from  beyond  the 
bridges,  responsive  to  our  lettre  de  faire  part. 
A  student  was  told  off  to  march  with  each 
visitor  ;  and  this  arrangement  proved  the 
means  of  my  being  able  to  supply  the  missing 
chapter  of  Bibi's  story. 


90  GREY    ROSES 

The  person  to  whom  I  found  myself  assigned 
was  an  elderly,  military-looking  man,  with  the 
red  rosette  in  his  buttonhole  ;  extremely  well- 
dressed  and  groomed ;  erect,  ruddy,  bright- 
eyed  ;  with  close-cropped  white  hair,  and  a 
drooping  white  moustache :  the  picture  of  a 
distinguished,  contented,  fine  old  French  gentle 
man  :  whom  I  marvelled  a  good  deal  to  see  in 
this  conjunction. 

On  our  way  to  the  graveyard  we  spoke  but 
little.  Our  business  there  over,  however,  he 
offered  me  a  seat  in  his  carriage,  a  brougham 
that  had  sauntered  after  us,  for  the  return. 
And  no  sooner  was  the  carriage  door  closed 
upon  us  than  he  began — 

'  I  am  an  old  man.  I  want  to  talk.  Will 
you  listen  ? 

'This  death,  this  funeral,  have  stirred  me 
deeply.  I  knew  Kasghine  years  ago  in  Russia, 
when  we  were  both  young  men,  he  an  officer  in 
the  Russian  army,  I  an  attache"  to  the  French 
Embassy. 

'  His  career  has  been  a  very  sad  one.  It 
illustrates  many  sad  truths. 

'  Sometimes — it  is  trite  to  say  so — an  act  of 
baseness,  a  crime  of  some  sort,  may  be  the 


THE  REWARD  OF  VIRTUE      91 

beginning,  the  first  cause,  of  a  man's  salvation. 
It  pulls  him  up,  wakes  his  conscience.  Aghast 
at  what  he  has  done,  he  reflects,  repents,  re 
forms.  That  is  a  comforting  circumstance,  a 
token  of  God's  goodness. 

'But  what  shall  we  say  when  the  exact 
opposite  happens  ?  When  it  is  an  act  of 
nobility,  of  splendid  heroism,  of  magnificent 
self-devotion,  that  brings  to  pass  a  man's  moral 
downfall  ?  It  is  horrible  to  admit  such  a  thing 
as  possible,  is  it  not  ?  And  yet,  the  same  man 
who  may  be  capable  of  one  sudden  immense 
act  of  heroism,  may  be  quite  incapable  of  keep 
ing  up  the  prolonged,  daily,  yearly  struggle  with 
adversity  which  that  act  may  entail  upon  him. 

'  It  was  so  with  Kasghine.  It  was  a  very 
noble  action  which  drove  him,  an  exile,  from 
his  country.  Thrown  upon  the  streets  of  Paris, 
without  friends,  without  money,  he  had  not  the 
stuff  in  him  to  stand  up  against  the  forces  that 
were  in  operation  to  drag  him  down.  Which 
of  us  can  be  sure  that  he  would  have  that  stuff? 
From  begging  for  work  whereby  to  earn  money, 
Kasghine  fell  to  begging  for  money  itself.  His 
pride  receiving  a  thousand  wounds,  instead  of 
being  strengthened  by  them,  was  killed.  Clean- 


92  GREY    ROSES 

liness  is  a  luxury,  a  labour;  he  began  to  neglect 
his  person  ;  and,  in  the  case  of  a  gentleman, 
neglect  of  the  person  is  generally  the  first  step 
towards  neglect  of  the  spirit.  Little  by  little 
he  lost  his  civilised  character,  and  reverted  to 
the  primitive  beast.  He  was  feral. 

'  But  thirty,  thirty-five  years  ago,  there  were 
few  young  men  in  St.  Petersburg  with  better 
positions,  brighter  prospects,  than  Kasghine's. 
He  belonged  to  an  excellent  family  ;  he  was 
intelligent,  good-looking,  popular ;  he  was  a 
Captain  in  a  good  regiment.  One  of  his  uncles 
had  been  minister  of  war,  and  stood  high  in 
the  favour  of  the  Tsar. 

'In  the  spring  of  1847,  Kasghine's  regiment 
was  ordered  to  Warsaw,  and  garrisoned  in  the 
fortress  there.  Twenty  Polish  patriots  were 
confined  in  the  casemates,  awaiting  execution  ; 
men  of  education,  honourable  men,  men  with 
wives  and  children,  condemned  to  be  hanged 
because  they  had  conspired  together — a  foolish, 
ineffectual  conspiracy — against  what  they  re 
garded  as  the  tyranny  of  Russia,  for  the  liberty 
of  their  country.  They  had  struck  no  blow, 
but  they  had  written  and  talked;  and  they 
were  to  be  hanged 


THE   REWARD   OF  VIRTUE      93 

'  The  fate  of  these  men  seemed  to  Kasghine 
very  unjust,  very  inhuman.  It  preyed  upon 
his  mind.  He  took  it  into  his  head  to  rescue 
them,  to  contrive  their  escape.  I  do  not  say 
that  this  was  wise  or  right ;  but  it  was  certainly 
generous.  No  doubt  he  had  a  period  of  hesi 
tation.  On  the  one  hand  was  his  consigns  as  a 
Russian  soldier ;  on  the  other,  what  he  con 
ceived  to  be  his  duty  as  a  man.  He  knew 
that  the  act  he  contemplated  spelt  ruin  for 
himself,  that  it  spelt  death  ;  and  he  had  every 
reason  to  hold  life  sweet. 

'However,  he  opened  communications  with 
the  prisoners  in  the  casemates,  and  with  their 
friends  in  the  town.  And  one  night  he  got 
them  all  safely  out, — by  daybreak  they  were 
secure  in  hiding.  Kasghine  himself  remained 
behind.  Some  one  would  have  to  be  punished. 
If  the  guilty  man  fled,  an  innocent  man  would 
be  punished. 

'Well,  he  was  tried  by  Court  Martial,  and 
sentenced  to  be  shot.  But  the  Emperor,  out 
of  consideration  for  Kasghine's  family,  com 
muted  the  sentence  to  one  of  hard  labour  for 
life  in  the  mines  of  Kara, — a  cruel  kindness. 
After  eight  years  in  the  mines,  with  blunted 


94  GREY    ROSES 

faculties,  broken  health,  disfigured  by  the  loss 
of  an  eye,  and  already  no  doubt  in  some  meas 
ure  demoralised  by  the  hardships  he  had  suf 
fered,  he  was  pardoned, — another  cruel  kind 
ness.  He  was  pardoned  on  condition  that  he 
would  leave  Russian  territory,  and  never  enter 
it  again.  There  are  periodic  wholesale  pardon- 
ings,  you  know,  at  Kara,  to  clear  the  prisons 
and  make  room  for  fresh  convicts. 

'Kasghine's  private  fortune  had  been  con 
fiscated.  His  family  had  ceased  all  relations 
with  him,  and  would  do  nothing  for  him.  He 
came  to  Paris,  and  had  to  engage  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  a  struggle  with  which  he 
was  totally  unfamiliar,  for  which  he  was  totally 
unequipped.  The  only  profession  he  knew 
was  soldiering.  He  tried  to  obtain  a  com 
mission  in  the  French  army.  International 
considerations,  if  no  others,  put  that  out  of  the 
question.  He  tried  to  get  work, — teaching, 
translating.  He  was  not  a  good  teacher ;  his 
translations  did  not  please  his  employers.  Re 
member,  his  health  was  enfeebled,  he  was  dis 
figured  by  the  loss  of  an  eye ;  he  had  spent 
eight  years  in  the  mines  at  Kara.  He  began 
to  sink.  Let  those  blame  him  who  know  how 


THE  REWARD  OF  VIRTUE        95 

hard  it  is  to  swim.  From  borrowing,  from  beg 
ging,  he  sank  to  I  dare  not  guess  what.  I  am 
afraid  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  for  a  while 
he  served  the  Russian  secret  police  as  a  spy ; 
but  he  proved  an  unremunerative  spy ;  they 
turned  him  off.  He  took  to  drink,  he  sank 
lower  and  lower,  he  became  whatever  is  lowest. 
I  had  not  seen  him  or  heard  of  him  for  years, 
when,  yesterday,  I  read  the  announcement  of 
his  death  in  the  Figaro! 

The  old  man  set  me  down  at  the  corner  of 
the  Rue  Racine.  I  have  never  met  him  again ; 
I  have  never  learned  who  he  was. 

The  other  day,  being  in  Paris,  I  made  a 
pilgrimage  to  the  Cemetery  of  Montparnasse, 
to  look  at  Bibi's  grave.  The  wooden  cross  we 
had  erected  over  it  was  pied  with  weather- 
stains,  the  inscription  more  than  half  ob 
literated— 

ALEXIS  DIMITRIEVITCH  KASGHINE 

Ne  a  Moscou,  le  20  JANVIER,  1823, 

MORT  a  PARIS,  le  20  DECEMBRE,  1884. 

Priez  pour  lut. 


A    RE-INCARNATION 

WE  were,  according  to  our  nightly  habit,  in 
possession  of  the  Caf£  des  Souris — dear  Cafe 
des  Souris,  that  is  no  more ;  and  our  assiduous 
patronage  rumour  alleges  to  have  been  the 
death  of  it — we  were  in  possession  of  the  Caf6 
des  Souris,  a  score  or  so  of  us,  chiefly  English 
speakers,  and  all  votaries  of  one  or  other  of  the 
'  quatre-z-arts,'  when  the  door  swung  open,  and 
he  entered. 

Now,  the  entrance  of  anybody  not  a  mem 
ber  of  our  particular  clnacle  into  the  Cafe  des 
Souris,  we,  who  felt  (I  don't  know  why)  that  we 
had  proprietary  rights  in  the  establishment, 
could  not  help  deeming  somewhat  in  the 
nature  of  an  unwarranted  intrusion ;  so  we 
stopped  our  talk  for  an  instant,  and  stared  at 
him :  a  man  of  medium  stature,  heavily  built, 
with  hair  that  fell  to  his  shoulders,  escaping 
from  beneath  a  broad-brimmed,  soft  felt  hat, 


A  RE-INCARNATION  97 

knee  breeches  like  a  bicyclist's,  and,  in  lieu  of 
overcoat,  a  sort  of  doublet,  or  magnified  cape, 
of  buff-coloured  cloth. 

He  supported  our  examination,  and  the 
accompanying  interval  of  silence,  which  ordin 
ary  flesh  and  blood  might  have  found  em- 
barassing,  with  more  than  composure — with,  it 
seemed  to  me,  a  dimly  perceptible,  subcutane 
ous  smile,  as  of  satisfaction — and  seated  himself 
at  the  only  vacant  table.  This  world  held 
nothing  human  worthy  to  rivet  our  attention 
longer  than  thirty  seconds,  whence,  very  soon, 
we  were  hot  in  debate  again.  It  was  the  first 
Sunday  in  May ;  I  need  hardly  add  that  our 
subject-matter  was  the  Vernissage,  at  which  the 
greater  number  of  us  had  assisted. 

For  myself,  however,  I  could  not  forbid  my 
gaze  to  wander  back  from  time  to  time  upon 
the  stranger :  an  indulgence  touching  which  I 
felt  the  less  compunction,  in  that  he  had  (it  was 
a  fair  inference)  got  himself  up  with  a  deliber 
ate  view  to  attracting  just  such  notice.  Else 
why  the  sombrero  and  knickerbockers,  the 
flowing  locks  and  eccentric  yellow  cloak? 
Nay,  I  think  it  may  have  been  in  part  this 
very  note  of  undisguised  vanity  in  the  man 


98  GREY    ROSES 

that  made  it  difficult  to  keep  one's  eyes  off 
him  :  it  tickled  the  sense  of  humour,  and  chal 
lenged  the  curiosity.  What  would  his  state  of 
mind  be,  who,  in  the  dotage  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  went  laboriously  out  of  his  way  to 
cultivate  a  fragmentary  resemblance  to — say  a 
spurious  Vandyke  ? 

As  the  heat  of  the  room  began  to  tell  upon 
him,  he  threw  aside  his  outer  garment,  and 
hung  up  his  hat,  thereby  discovering  a  velvet 
jacket  and  a  very  low-cut  shirt,  with  unstarched 
rolling  collar,  and  sailor's  knot  of  pale  green 
Liberty  silk.  His  long  hair,  of  a  faded,  dusty 
brown,  was  brushed  straight  back  from  his 
forehead,  and  plastered  down  upon  his  scalp, 
in  such  wise  as  to  lend  him  a  misleading  effect 
of  baldness.  He  wore  a  drooping  brown  mous 
tache,  and  a  lustreless  brown  beard,  trimmed 
to  an  Elizabethan  point.  His  skin  was  sallow; 
his  eyes  were  big,  wide  apart,  of  an  untrans- 
parent  buttony  brilliancy,  and  in  colour  dully 
blue.  Taken  for  all  in  all,  his  face,  deprived  of 
the  adventitious  aids  of  long  hair  and  Eliza 
bethan  beard,  would  have  been  peculiarly 
spiritless  and  insignificant,  but  from  the  com 
placency  that  shone  like  an  unguent  in  every 


A  RE-INCARNATION  99 

line  of  it,  as  well  as  from  the  studied  pictur- 
esqueness  of  his  costume,  it  was  manifest  that 
he  posed  as  a  unique  and  interesting  character, 
a  being  mysterious  and  romantic,  melancholy 
and  rarely  gifted — like  the  artist  in  a  bad  play. 
Artist,  indeed,  of  some  description,  I  told 
myself,  he  must  infallibly  be  reckoned.  What 
mere  professional  man  or  merchant  would  have 
the  heart  to  render  his  person  thus  conspic 
uous  ?  And  the  hypothesis  that  might  have 
disposed  of  him  as  a  model  was  excluded  by 
the  freshness  of  his  clothes.  A  poet,  painter, 
sculptor,  possibly  an  actor  or  musician — any 
how,  something  to  which  the  generic  name  of 
artist,  soiled  with  all  ignoble  use,  could  more 
or  less  flatteringly  be  applied — I  made  sure  he 
was ;  an  ornament  of  our  own  English  - 
speaking  race,  moreover,  proclaimed  such  by 
the  light  of  intelligence  that  played  upon  his 
features  as  he  followed  our  noisy  conversation ; 
and,  at  a  guess,  two  or  three-and-thirty  years 
of  age. 

'  Anybody  know  the  duffer  with  the  hair?' 
This  question,  started  by  Charles  K.  Smith, 
of  Battle  Creek,  Michigan,  U.S.A.,  and  com 
monly  called  in  the  Latin  Quarter  by  his  sob- 


ioo  GREY    ROSES 

riquet  of  Chalks,  went  our  rounds  in  an  under 
tone  ;  and  everybody  answered, '  No.' 

'What  is  it?  Can  it  talk?  Tears  like  it 
can  hear  and  catch  on/  was  Chalks's  next  re 
mark.  '  Shall  we  work  the  growler  on  it  ? ' 

The  process  termed  by  Chalks  '  working  the 
growler '  was  of  ancient  institution  in  the  Cafe" 
des  Souris  ;  and  I  believe  it  is  not  unknown  in 
other  seats  of  learning — a  custom  handed  down 
from  generation  to  generation  of  students, 
which,  like  politeness,  costing  little,  yields 
generous  returns.  Should  a  casual  wayfarer, 
happening  amongst  us,  so  far  transgress  the 
usages  of  good  society  as  to  volunteer  a  con 
tribution  to  our  talk,  without  the  preliminary 
of  an  introduction,  it  was  the  rule  instantly  to 
require  him  to  offer  the  company  refreshments ; 
and,  I  am  sorry  to  have  to  add,  not  infrequently, 
being  thirsty,  and  possessing  a  lively  apprecia 
tion  of  the  value  of  our  own  money,  we  would, 
by  a  marked  affability  of  bearing,  by  smiles, 
nods,  glances  of  sympathetic  understanding, 
or  what  not,  designedly  encourage  such  an  one 
to  address  us,  and  so  render  himself  liable  to 
our  impost. 

1  If  we  don't,'  continued  Chalks, '  it  will  be 


A  RE-INCARNATION  101 

to  fly  in  the  face  of  Providence.  The  man 
is  simply  bursting  to  fire  his  mouth  off.  He's 
had  something  to  say  swelling  in  him  for  the 
last  half-hour.  It  will  be  an  act  of  Christian 
mercy  to  let  him  say  it  And  for  myself,  I 
confess  I'm  rather  dry.' 

Chalks  doubtless  argued  from  the  eager  eye 
with  which  the  man  regarded  us;  from  the 
uneasy  way  in  which  he  held  his  seat,  shifting 
in  it,  and  edging  in  our  direction ;  and  from 
the  tentative  manner  in  which  he  occasionally 
coughed. 

Now,  persuaded  by  the  American,  we  one 
by  one  fell  silent,  to  give  our  victim  his 
opportunity ;  whilst  those  nearest  to  him 
baited  the  trap  by  looking  enquiringly  at  his 
face. 

It  was  all  he  needed. 

'I  beg  your  pardon,'  he  began,  with  no 
symptom  of  diffidence,  '  but  I  too  was  at  the 
Vernissage  to-day,  and  some  of  your  comments 
upon  it  have  surprised  me.'  He  spoke  with 
a  staccato  north-country  accent,  in  a  chirpy, 
querulous  little  voice;  and  each  syllable 
seemed  to  chop  the  air,  like  a  blow  from  a 
small  hatchet  'Am  I  to  take  it  that  you 


102  GREY    ROSES 

are  serious  when  you  condemn  Bouguereau's 
great  picture  as  a  croute  ?  Croute,  if  I  mistake 
not,  is  equivalent  to  the  English  daub  ? ' 

Our  one-armed  waiter,  Pierre,  had  but 
awaited  this  crisis  to  come  forward  and  re 
ceive  our  orders.  When  they  were  delivered 
Chalks  courteously  explained  the  situation 
to  the  neophyte,  adding  that,  as  a  further 
formality,  he  must  make  us  acquainted  with 
his  name  and  occupation. 

He  accepted  it  in  perfectly  good  part.  '  I'm 
sure  I  shall  feel  honoured  if  you  will  drink  with 
me/  he  said,  and  settled  the  reckoning  with 
Pierre. 

'  Name  ?  Name  ? '  a  dozen  of  us  cried  in 
scattering  chorus. 

'  I  had  thought  that,  among  so  many 
Englishmen  and  Americans,  some  one  would 
have  recognised  me,'  he  replied.  '  I  am  Davis 
Blake.' 

He  said  it  as  one  might  say,  '  I  am  Mr. 
Gladstone' — or  Lord  Salisbury — or  Bismarck 
— with  dignity,  with  an  inflection  of  conscious 
greatness,  it  is  true,  but  with  neither  haugh 
tiness  nor  ostentation.  We,  however,  are 
singularly  ignorant  of  contemporary  English 


A  RE-INCARNATION  103 

literature  in  the  Latin  Quarter — our  chief 
reading  matter,  indeed,  being  Maupassant 
and  Le  Petit  Journal  pour  Rire — and  though, 
as  we  shortly  learned,  here  was  a  writer  whose 
works  were  for  sale  at  every  bookstall  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  lavishly  pirated  in  the 
United  States,  and  distributed  far  and  wide 
by  Baron  Tauchnitz  on  the  Continent,  his 
announcement  left  us  unenlightened. 

'  Painter  ? '  demanded  Chalks. 

A  shadow  crossed  his  face.  *  You  are 
surely  familiar  with  my  name  ? ' 

'  Never  heard  it  that  I  know  of,'  answered 
Chalks  ;  then,  raising  his  voice,  '  Any  gentle 
man  present  ever  heard  of — what  did  you  say 
your  name  was  ? '  he  asked  in  an  aside  ;  and 
being  informed,  went  on, '  of  Mr.  Davis  Blake  ? ' 

No  one  spoke. 

*  Mud  ? '   queried  Chalks. 

'  Mud  ? '   repeated  Mr.  Blake,  perplexed. 

'  He  means  to  enquire  whether  you  are  a 
sculptor,'  ventured  I. 

'A  sculptor — certainly  not.'  He  spoke 
sharply,  throwing  back  his  head.  '  It  is  im 
possible  that  no  one  here  should  have  heard 
of  me  ;  and  this  pretence  of  ignorance  is  meant 


104  GREY    ROSES 

as  a  practical  joke.  I  am  a  novelist — one  of 
the  best  known  novelists  living.  I  am  Davis 
Blake,  the  author  of  "Crispin  Dorr,"  and 
"  The  Card  Dealer."  My  portrait,  with  a  short 
biographical  sketch,  appeared  in  the  Illustrated 
Gazette  not  a  month  ago.  My  works  have  been 
translated  into  French,  German,  Russian,  and 
Italian.  Of  "  The  Card  Dealer,"  upwards  of 
thirty  thousand  copies  have  been  sold  in  Great 
Britain  alone.' 

'Ah,  then  you  could  well  afford  to  stand 
us  drinks,'  was  Chalks's  cheerful  commentary. 
'  We  ain't  much  on  book-learning,  this  side  the 
river,  Mr.  Blake.  We're  plain  blunt  men,  that 
ain't  ashamed  of  manual  labour — horny-handed 
sons  of  toil,  in  short.  But  we're  proud  to  meet 
a  cultivated  gentleman  like  yourself,  all  the 
same,  and  can  appreciate  him  when  met.' 

Blake  laughed  rather  lamely,  and  responded, 
'  I  perceive  that  you  are  a  humorist.  Your 
countrymen  are  great  admirers  of  my  writings ; 
of  "Crispin  Dorr,"  I  am  told,  there  are  no 
fewer  than  three  rival  editions  in  the  market ; 
and  I  have  received  complimentary  letters 
and  requests  for  my  autograph,  from  all  parts 
of  the  United  States.  I  think  that  the  quality 


A  RE-INCARNATION  105 

of  American  humour  has  been  over-rated  :  but 
I  can  forgive  a  jest  at  my  own  expense, 
provided  it  be  not  meant  in  malice.' 

'  Every  novice  in  our  order,  sir/  said  Chalks, 
'  must  approve  his  mettle  by  undergoing  some 
thing  in  the  nature  of  an  initiatory  ordeal.  We 
may  now  drop  foolery,  and  converse  like  intelli 
gent  human  beings.  You  were  asking  our 
opinion  of  Willy's  daub ' 

'Willy?'  questioned  Blake. 

'Ay — Bouguereau.  Isn't  his  front  name 
William?'  And  Chalks,  speaking  as  it  were 
ex  cathedrd,  made  very  short  work  indeed  of 
Monsieur  Bouguereau's  claims  to  rank  as  a 
painter.  Blake  listened  with  open-eyed  wonder. 
But  we  are  difficult  critics,  we  of  the  Paris  art 
schools,  between  the  ages  of  twenty  and  twenty-- 
five ;  cold,  cynical,  suspicious  as  any  Old  Bailey 
judge  ;  and  rare  is  the  man  whose  work  can 
sustain  our  notice,  and  get  off  with  lighter 
censure  than  '  crodte '  or  'plat  d'fyinards.'  We 
grow  more  lenient,  however,  as  we  advance  in 
years.  Already,  at  thirty,  we  begin  to  detect 
signs  of  promise  in  other  canvases  than  our 
own.  At  forty,  conceivably,  we  shall  even 
admit  a  certain  degree  of  actual  merit 


106  GREY    ROSES 

By  and  by,  Chalks  having  concluded  his  pro 
nouncement,  and  drifted  to  another  corner  of 
the  room,  Blake  and  I  fell  into  separate  talk. 

*  1  must  count  it  a  piece  of  exceptional  good 
fortune/  he  informed  me,  'to  have  made  the 
acquaintance  of  your  little  coterie  this  evening. 
I  am  on  the  point  of  writing  a  novel,  in  which 
it  will  be  necessary  that  my  hero  should  pass 
several  years  as  a  student  in  the  Latin  Quarter; 
and    I   have   run   over   from    London  for  the 
especial  purpose  of  collecting  local  colour.     No 
doubt  you  will  be  able  to  help  me  with  a  hint 
or  two  as  to  the  best  mode  of  setting  about  it' 

*  I  can  think  of  none  better  than  to  come 
here  and  live  for  a  while,'  said  I. 

'  I  only  arrived  last  night,  and  I  put  up  at 
the  Grand  Hotel.  But  it  was  quite  my  inten 
tion  to  move  across  the  river  directly  I  could 
find  suitable  lodgings.  Do  you  know  of  any 
that  you  could  recommend  ? ' 

'  If  you  want  to  see  student  life  par  excellence, 
you  can  scarcely  improve  upon  the  shop  I'm 
in  myself — the  Hotel  du  Saint-Esprit,  in  the 
Rue  St.  Jacques.' 

And  after  he  had  examined  me  in  some 
detail  touching  that  house  of  entertainment, 


A   RE-INCARNATION  107 

'  Yes,'  he  said, '  then,  if  you  will  bespeak  a  room 
for  me  there,  I'll  come  to-morrow  and  stop  for 
a  week  or  ten  days.' 

'  A  week  or  ten  days  ? '  I  questioned. 

'  I  can't  spare  more  than  a  fortnight.  I  must 
be  back  in  town  by  the  2Oth.' 

'But  what  can  you  hope  to  learn  of  Latin 
Quarter  customs  in  a  fortnight?  One  ought 
to  live  here  for  a  year,  at  the  very  least,  before 
attempting  to  write  us  up.' 

'  Ah,'  he  rejoined,  shaking  his  head  and  gazing 
dreamily  at  something  invisible  beyond  the 
smoky  atmosphere  of  the  cafe", '  a  man  with 
dramatic  insight  can  learn  as  much  in  a  fort 
night  as  an  ordinary  person  in  half  a  lifetime. 
Intuition  and  inspiration  take  the  place  of  the 
note-book  and  the  yard-stick.  The  author  of 
The  Merchant  of  Venice  had  never  visited  Italy. 
In  "  Crispin  Dorr  "  I  have  described  a  tempest 
and  a  shipwreck  at  which  old  sailors  shudder : 
and  my  longest  voyage  has  been  from  Holyhead 
to  Kingstown.  Besides,'  he  added,  with  a  bow 
and  smile,  '  for  the  Latin  Quarter,  if  you  will 
take  me  under  your  protection,  I  shall,  I  am 
sure,  benefit  by  the  services  of  a  capital  cicerone.' 

And  the  next  afternoon  he  arrived.     I  met 


io8  GREY    ROSES 

him  at  the  threshold  of  the  hotel,  introduced 
him  to  our  landlady,  Madame  Pamparagoux 
(who  stared  rather  wildly,  not  being  accus 
tomed  to  see  her  lodgers  so  mediaevally  attired), 
and  showed  him  upstairs  to  the  room  I  had 
engaged. 

There  he  invited  me  to  be  seated  while  he 
unpacked  his  portmanteau  and  put  his  things 
in  order.  These,  I  noticed,  were  un-Britishly 
few  and  simple.  I  could  discern  no  vestiges 
of  either  sponge  or  tub.  As  he  moved  back 
wards  and  forwards  between  his  chest  of 
drawers  and  dressing-table,  he  would  cast 
frequent  affectionate  glances  at  his  double, 
now  in  the  glass  of  the  armoire,  now  in  that 
above  the  chimney.  He  was  favouring  me 
meantime  with  a  running  monologue  of  an 
autobiographical  complexion. 

'  I  am  a  self-educated  man.  My  father  was 
a  wine  merchant  in  Leeds.  At  sixteen  he  put 
me  to  serve  in  the  shop  of  a  cousin,  a  print- 
seller.  It  was  there,  I  think,  that  my  literary 
instincts  awoke.  I  contributed  occasional  art 
notes  to  a  local  paper.  At  twenty  I  came 
up  to  London  and  began  my  definite  career, 
as  a  reporter.  I  was  soon  earning  thirty 


A  RE-INCARNATION  109 

shillings  a  week,  which  seemed  to  me  magni 
ficent.  But  I  aspired  to  higher  things.  I 
felt  within  me  the  stirrings  of  what  I  could 
not  help  believing  to  be  genius — true  genius. 
I  longed  to  distinguish  myself,  to  emerge  from 
the  crowd,  from  the  background,  to  make 
myself  remarked,  to  do  something,  to  be  some 
body,  to  see  my  name  a  famous  one.  I  was 
fortunate  enough  at  this  epoch  to  attract  the 

notice  of  X ,   the   poet.     He  believed   in 

me,  and  encouraged  me  to  believe  in  myself. 
It  is  one  of  the  regrets  of  my  life  that  he  died 
before  I  had  achieved  my  celebrity.  However, 
I  have  achieved  it.  My  name  is  a  household 
word  wherever  the  English  language  is  read. 
I  have  written  the  only  novels  of  my  time 
that  are  sure  to  live.  They  will  live  not  only 
by  virtue  of  their  style  and  matter,  but  because 
of  a  quality  they  possess  which  I  must  call 
universal — a  quality  which  appeals  with  equal 
force  to  readers  of  every  rank,  and  which  will 
procure  for  them  as  wide  a  popularity  five 
hundred  years  hence  as  they  enjoy  to-day.  I 
call  them  novels,  but  they  are  really  prose- 
poems.  The  novel/  he  continued,  rising  for 
an  instant  to  impersonal  heights,  '  the  novel 


no  GREY    ROSES 

is  the  literary  form  or  expression  of  my 
period,  as  the  drama  was  that  of  Shakespeare's, 
the  epic  of  Homer's.  Do  you  follow  me? 
Ah,  here  is  a  copy  of  "Crispin  Dorr" — here 
is  "The  Card  Dealer."  Take  them  and  read 
them,  and  return  them  when  you  have  finished. 
Being  author's  copies,  they  possess  an  ex 
ceptional  value.  This  is  my  autograph  upon 
the  fly-leaf.  This  is  a  photograph  of  my  wife. 
She  is  a  good  woman,  but  has  no  great  literary 
culture,  and  we  are  not  so  happy  together  as 
I  could  wish.  Men  of  commanding  parts 
seldom  make  good  husbands,  and  I  committed 
the  imprudence  of  marrying  very  young.  My 
wife,  you  see,  belongs  to  that  class  of  society 
from  which  I  have  risen.  I  am  the  son  of 
a  wine  merchant,  yet  I  dine  with  peers,  and 
have  been  favoured  with  smiles  from  peeresses. 
My  wife  has  not  kept  pace  with  me.  This 
is  my  little  girl — our  only  child — my  daughter 
Judith.  Here  is  the  Illustrated  Gazette  with 
the  portrait  of  myself.' 

Some  of  us  in  the  Latin  Quarter  found  the 
man's  egotism  insupportable,  and  gave  him 
a  wide  berth.  Others,  more  numerous,  among 
them  the  irrepressible  Chalks,  made  it  an 


A  RE-INCARNATION  in 

object  of  derision,  and  would  exhaust  their 
ingenuity  in  efforts  to  lead  him  on,  and  entice 
him  into  more  and  more  egregious  exhibitions 
of  it ;  while,  if  they  did  not  laugh  in  his 
face,  they  took,  at  least,  no  slightest  pains  to 
conceal  their  jubilant  interchange  of  winks  and 
nudges. 

'  If  he  were  only  an  ass/  Chalks  urged,  'one 
might  feel  disposed  to  spare  him.  A  merciful 
man  is  merciful  to  a  beast.  But  he's  such  a  cad, 
to  boot — bandying  his  wife's  name  about  the 
Latin  Quarter,  telling  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry 
of  their  conjugal  differences,  and  boasting  of 
his  successes  with  other  women  ! ' 

A  few  of  us,  however,  could  not  prevent 
an  element  of  pity  from  tincturing  our  amuse 
ment.  If  his  self-conceit  was  comical,  by 
reason  of  its  candour,  it  was  surely  pitiable, 
because  of  the  poor,  dwarfed  starveling  of 
a  soul  that  it  revealed.  Here  was  a  man, 
with  life  in  his  veins,  and  round  about  him 
the  whole  mystery  and  richness  of  creation — 
and  he  could  seriously  think  of  nothing 
save  how,  by  his  dress,  by  his  speech,  his 
postures,  to  render  himself  the  observed  of  all 
observers ! 


H2  GREY    ROSES 

Wherever  he  went,  in  whatever  company 
he  found  himself,  that  was  the  sole  thing  he 
cared  for — to  be  the  centre  of  attention,  to 
be  looked  at,  listened  to,  recognised  and 
admired  as  a  celebrity.  And  if  the  event 
happened  otherwise,  if  he  had  ground  for 
the  suspicion  that  the  people  near  him  were 
suffering  their  minds  to  wander  to  another 
topic,  his  face  would  darken,  his  attitude 
become  distinctly  one  of  rancour.  With 
Chalks,  familiarity  bred  boldness ;  he  made 
the  latter  days  of  Blake's  sojourn  amongst 
us  exceedingly  unhappy, 

*Now,  Mr.  Blake,'  he  would  say,  'we 
are  going  to  talk  of  art  and  love  and 
things  in  general  for  a  while,  to  rest 
our  brains  from  the  author  of  "Crispin 
Dorr."  Please  step  into  the  corner  there 
and  sulk.' 

And  he  had  a  bit  of  slang,  which  he  set 
to  a  bar  of  music,  and  would  sing,  as  if  in 
absence  of  mind,  whenever  the  conversation 
lapsed,  to  the  infinite  annoyance  of  Mr. 
Blake  :— 

'Git  your  hair  cut— git  your  hair  cut — git 
your  hair  cut — short ! ' 


A  RE-INCARNATION  113 

*  If  that  is  meant  for  me,'  Blake  once  pro 
tested,  '  I  take  it  as  discourteous  in  the  last 
degree.' 

'  My  dear  sir,  you  were  twenty  thousand 
leagues  from  my  thoughts.  And  as  for  getting 
your  hair  cut,  I  beseech  you,  don't.  You 
would  shear  away  the  fabric  of  our  joy,' 
Chalks  answered. 

Blake  had  a  curiously  exaggerated  notion  of 
his  fame ;  and  his  jealousy  thereof  surpassed 
the  jealousy  of  women.  He  took  it  for 
granted  that  everybody  had  heard  of  him, 
and  bridled,  as  at  a  personal  affront,  when 
he  met  any  one  who  hadn't.  If  you  fell  into 
chance  talk  with  him,  in  ignorance  of  his 
identity,  he  could  not  let  three  minutes  pass 
without  informing  you.  And  then,  if  you 
appeared  not  adequately  impressed,  he  would 
wax  ill-tempered.  He  was  genuinely  con 
vinced  that  his  person  and  his  actions  were 
affairs  of  consuming  interest  to  all  the  world. 
To  be  something,  to  do  something,  perhaps 
he  honestly  aspired  ;  but  to  seem  something 
was  certainly  his  ruling  passion. 

One   Sunday  afternoon,   at   his   suggestion, 

we  went  together  to  the  studio  of  Z  , 

H 


H4  GREY    ROSES 

and  I  introduced  him  to  the  Master.  But, 
as  we  moved  about  the  vast  room,  among 
those  small,  priceless  canvases,  the  conscious^ 
ness  grew  upon  me  that  my  companion 
was  in  some  distress  of  mind.  His  eye 
wandered  ;  his  utterances  were  brief  and  dry. 
At  length  he  got  me  into  a  corner,  and 
remarked,  'You  introduced  me  simply  as 
Mr.  Blake.  He  evidently  doesn't  realise  who 
lam.' 

'Oh,  these  Frenchmen  are  so  indifferent 
to  things  not  French,  you  know,'  said  I. 

'Yes — but — still — I  wish  you  could  make 
an  occasion  to  let  him  know.  In  introduc 
ing  me  you  might  have  added  "  a  distinguished 
English  author." ' 

'  But  do  you  quite  realise  who  he  is  ? '  I  cried. 
'  He's  jolly  near  the  most  distinguished  living 
painter.' 

'Never  mind.  He  is  treating  me  now  as 
he  might  Brown,  Jones,  or  Robinson.'  As  this 
was  with  a  superfine  consideration,  it  seemed 
unreasonable  to  demand  a  difference.  Never 
theless,  I  seized  an  opportunity  to  whisper 
in  the  Master's  ear  a  word  or  two  to 
the  desired  effect.  '  Tuns  / '  he  returned 


A  RE-INCARNATION  115 

composedly,  and  continued  to  treat  his 
visitor  precisely  as  he  had  done  from  the 
beginning. 

Blake  had  announced  that  he  wanted  to 
gather  information  about  the  Latin  Quarter  ; 
and  I  don't  doubt  that  his  purpose  was 
sincere,  but  he  employed  a  novel  method  of 
attaining  it.  We  took  him  everywhere,  we 
showed  him  everything ;  I  could  never  observe 
that  he  either  looked  or  listened.  He  would 
sit  (or  stand  or  walk),  his  eye  craving  admira 
tion  from  our  faces  ;  his  tongue  wagging  about 
himself;  his  early  hardships,  his  first  success, 
his  habits  of  work,  his  troubles  with  his  wife, 
his  liaison  with  Lady  Blank,  his  tastes  in 
fruits  and  wines,  his  handwriting,  his  very 
teeth  and  boots.  He  passed  his  life  in  a 
sort  of  trance,  an  ecstacy  of  self-absorption  ; 
he  had  fallen  in  love  with  his  own  con 
ception  of  himself,  like  a  metaphysical 
Narcissus.  This  idiosyncrasy  was  the  means 
of  defeating  various  conspiracies,  in  which 
Chalks,  of  course,  was  the  prime  mover,  cal 
culated  to  impose  upon  his  credulity,  and 
send  him  back  to  London  loaded  down  with 
misinformation. 


n6  GREY    ROSES 

'  His  cheek,  by  Christopher  ! '  cried  Chalks. 
'  Live  in  the  Quarter  for  a  fortnight,  keep  his 
eyes  and  ears  shut,  talk  perpetually  of  Davis 
Blake,  and  read  nothing  but  his  own  works, 
and  then  go  home  and  write  a  book  about  it. 
Fit  quarter  him  ! ' 

But  Chalks  counted  without  his  man.  That 
Monsieur  Bullier,  the  founder  of  the  Closerie 
des  Lilas,  was  also  Professor  of  Moral  Phil 
osophy  in  the  College  de  France;  that  the 
word  ttudiantf  (for  Blake  had  only  a  tourist's 
smattering  of  French)  should  literally  be 
translated  student,  and  that  the  young  ladies 
who  bore  it  as  a  name  were  indeed  pursuing 
rigorous  courses  of  study  at  the  Sorbonne  ; 
that  it  was  obligatory  upon  a  freshman 
(nouveau)  in  the  Quarter  to  shave  his  head 
and  wear  wooden  shoes  for  the  first  month 
after  his  matriculation — from  these  and  kindred 
superstitions  Blake  was  saved  by  his  grand 
talent  for  never  paying  attention. 

In  the  meanwhile  some  of  us  had  read 
his  books :  chromo-lithographs,  struck  in  the 
primary  colours ;  pasteboard  complications  of 
passion  and  adventure,  with  the  conservative 
entanglement  of  threadbare  marionnettes — a 


A  RE-INCARNATION  117 

hero,  tall,  with  golden  brown  moustaches  and 
blue  eyes ;  a  heroine,  lissome,  with  '  sunny 
locks ; '  then  a  swarthy  villain,  for  the  most 
part  a  nobleman,  and  his  Spanish-looking 
female  accomplice,  who  had  an  uncomfortable 
habit  of  delivering  her  remarks  '  from  between 
clenched  teeth,'  and, .  generally,  '  in  a  blood- 
chilling  hiss' — the  narrative  set  forth  in  a 
sustained  fortissimo,  and  punctuated  by  the 
timely  exits  of  the  god  from  the  machine. 
Never  a  felicity,  never  an  impression.  I  fancy 
he  had  made  his  notes  of  human  nature  whilst 
observing  the  personages  of  a  melodrama  at 
a  provincial  theatre.  He  loved  the  obvious 
sentiment,  the  obvious  and  but  approximate 
word. 

But  the  climax  of  his  infatuation  was  not 
disclosed  till  the  night  before  he  left  us.  Again 
we  were  in  session  at  the  Cafe  des  Souris,  and 
the  talk  had  turned  upon  metempsychosis. 
Blake,  for  a  wonder,  pricked  up  his  ears  and 
appeared  to  listen,  at  the  same  time  watching 
his  chance  to  take  the  floor.  Half-a-dozen 
men  had  their  say  first,  however;  then  he 
cut  in. 

'  Metempsychosis  is  not  a  theory,  it  is  a  fact. 


ii8  GREY   ROSES 

I  can  testify  to  it  from  my  personal  experience. 
I  know  it.  I  can  distinctly  recall  my  former 
life.  I  can  tell  you  who  I  was,  who  my  friends 
were,  what  I  did,  what  I  felt,  everything,  down 
to  the  very  dishes  I  preferred  for  dinner.' 

Chalks  scanned  Blake's  features  for  an  in 
stant  with  an  intentness  that  suggested  a 
mingling  of  perplexity  and  malice ;  then,  all 
at  once,  I  saw  a  light  flash  in  his  eyes,  which 
forthwith  began  to  twinkle  in  a  manner  that 
struck  me  as  ominous. 

'In  my  early  youth,'  Blake  continued,  'this 
memory  of  mine  was,  if  I  may  so  phrase  it, 
piecemeal  and  occasional.  Feeling  that  I  was  no 
ordinary  man,  conscious  of  strange  forces  strug 
gling  in  me,  I  would  obtain,  as  it  were,  glimpses, 
fleeting  and  unsatisfactory,  into  a  former  state. 
Then  they  would  go,  not  for  long  intervals  to 
return.  As  time  elapsed,  however,  these 
glimpses,  to  call  them  so,  became  more  fre 
quent  and  lasting,  the  intervals  of  oblivion 
shorter;  and  at  last,  one  day  on  Hampstead 
Heath,  I  identified  myself  in  a  sudden  burst  of 
insight.  I  was  walking  on  the  Heath,  and 
thinking  of  my  work — marvelling  at  a  certain 
quality  I  had  discerned  in  it,  which,  I  was  con- 


A  RE-INCARNATION  119 

vinced,  would  assure  it  everlasting  life:  a 
quality  that  seemed  not  unfamiliar  to  me, 
and  yet  which  I  could  associate  with  none  of 
the  writers  whose  names  passed  in  review 
before  my  mind  ;  not  with  Byron,  or  Shelley, 
or  Keats,  not  with  Wordsworth  or  Coleridge, 
Goethe  or  Dante,  not  even  with  Homer.  I 
mean  the  quality  which  I  call  universal- — 
universal  in  its  authenticity,  universal  in  its 
appeal.  By-and-bye,  I  took  out  a  little  pocket 
mirror  that  I  always  carry,  and  looked  into  it, 
studying  my  face.  One  glance  sufficed.  There, 
suddenly,  on  Hampstead  Heath,  the  whole 
thing  flashed  upon  me.  I  saw,  I  understood;  I 
realised  who  I  was,  I  remembered  everything.' 
'Stop  right  there,  Mr.  Blake,'  called  out  Chalks 
in  stentorian  tones.  '  Don't  you  say  another 
word.  I'm  going  to  hail  you  by  your  right 
name  in  half-a-minute.  I  guess  I  must  have 
recognised  you  the  very  first  time  I  clapped 
eyes  on  your  distinguished  physiognomy  ;  only 
I  couldn't  just  place  you,  as  we  say  over  in 
America.  But  there  was  a  je  ne  sais  qtioi  in 
the  whole  cut  of  your  jib  as  familiar  to  me 
as  rolls  and  coffee.  I  tried  and  tried  to  think 
when  and  where  I'd  had  the  pleasure  before. 


120  GREY    ROSES 

But  now  that  you  speak  of  a  former  state  of 
existence — why,  I'm  there  I  It  was  all  I 
needed,  just  a  little  hint  like  that,  to  jog  my 
memory.  Talk  about  entertaining  angels  un 
awares  !  The  beard,  eh  ?  And  the  yaller 
cloak  ?  And  ain't  there  a  statue  of  you  up 
Boulevard  Haussmann  way?  Shakesy,  old 
man,  shake  ! ' 

And  Chalks  got  hold  of  his  victim's  hand 
and  wrung  it  fervently.  '  I'm  particularly 
glad  to  meet  you  this  way,'  he  added,  '  because 
I  was  Queen  Elizabeth  myself;  and  I  can't 
begin  to  tell  you  how  sort  of  out  of  it  I  felt, 
alone  here  with  all  this  degenerate  posterity.' 

Blake  coldly  withdrew  his  hand,  frowning 
loftily  at  Chalks.  'You  should  reserve  your 
nonsense  for  more  appropriate  occasions,'  he 
said.  '  Though  you  speak  in  a  spirit  of  foolish 
levity,  you  have  build ed  better  than  you  knew. 
I  am  indeed  Shakespeare  re-incarnated.  My 
books  alone  would  prove  it ;  they  could  have 
been  dictated  by  no  other  mind.  But — look 
at  this.' 

He  produced  from  an  interior  pocket  a  case 
of  red  morocco  and  handed  it  to  me.  '  You,'  he 
said,  with  a  flattering  emphasis  upon  the  pro- 


A   RE-INCARNATION  121 

noun,  '  you  are  a  man  who  can  treat  a  serious 
matter  seriously.  What  do  you  think  of 
that?' 

The  case  contained  a  photograph,  and  the 
photograph  represented  the  head  and  shoulders 
of  Mr.  Blake  and  a  bust  of  Shakespeare,  placed 
cheek  by  jowl.  In  the  pointed  beard  and  the 
wide-set  eyes  there  were,  perhaps,  the  rudi 
ments  of  something  remotely  like  a  likeness. 

'  Isn't  that  conclusive  ? '  he  demanded. 
'  Doesn't  that  place  the  fact  beyond  the  reach 
of  question  ? ' 

'You've  got  more  hair  than  you  used  to 
have,'  said  Chalks.  '  I'm  talking  of  the  front 
hair — your  forehead  ain't  as  high  as  it  was. 
But  your  back  hair  is  all  right  enough.' 

4  You  have  put  your  finger  on  the  one,  the 
only,  point  of  difference/  assented  Blake, 

On  our  way  home  he  took  my  arm,  and 
pitched  his  voice  in  the  key  of  confidence.  '  I 
am  writing  my  autobiography,  from  my  birth 
in  Stratford  down  to  the  present  day.  It  will 
be  in  two  parts ;  the  interim  when  people 
thought  me  dead,  marking  their  separation. 
I  was  not  dead  ;  I  slept  a  dreamless  sleep. 
Presently  I  shall  sleep  again  ;  as  men  say,  die ; 


122  GREY    ROSES 

then  doubtless  wake  again.  Life  and  death 
are  but  sleeping  and  waking  on  a  larger  scale. 
Our  little  life  is  rounded  with  a  sleep.  It  is 
the  swing  of  the  pendulum,  the  revolution  of 
the  orb.  Yes,  I  am  writing  my  autobiography. 
So  little  is  known  of  the  private  history  of 
Shakespeare,  conceive  the  boon  it  will  be  to 
mankind.  I  shall  leave  the  manuscripts  to 
my  executors,  for  them  to  publish  after  I  have 
lain  down  to  my  next  long  rest.  Of  special  value 
will  be  the  chapters  telling  how  I  wrote  the 
plays,  settling  disputed  readings,  closing  all 
controversy  upon  the  sanity  of  Hamlet,  and 
divulging  the  true  personality  of  Mr.  W.  H.' 

He  came  into  my  room  for  a  little  visit 
before  going  to  bed.  There,  candle  in  hand,  he 
gazed  long  and  earnestly  into  my  chimney-glass. 

'  Yes/  he  sighed  at  last,  '  it  is  solely  in  the 
quantity  of  my  hair  that  the  resemblance  fails.' 

I  understood  now  why  he  trained  it  back 
and  plastered  it  down  over  his  scalp,  as  he  did; 
at  a  rough  glance,  you  might  have  got  the  im 
pression  that  the  crown  of  his  head  was  bald. 
I  suppose  he  is  the  only  man  in  two  hemi 
spheres  who  finds  the  opposite  condition  a 
matter  of  regret. 


FLOWER  O'  THE  QUINCE 
I. 

THEODORE  Vellan  had  been  out  of  England 
for  more  than  thirty  years.  Thirty  odd  years 
ago  the  set  he  lived  in  had  been  startled  and 
mystified  by  his  sudden  flight  and  disappear 
ance.  At  that  time  his  position  here  had 
seemed  a  singularly  pleasant  one.  He  was 
young — he  was  seven-  or  eight-and-twenty ; 
he  was  fairly  well  off — he  had  something  like 
three  thousand  a  year,  indeed ;  he  belonged  to 
an  excellent  family,  the  Shropshire  Vellans,  of 
whom  the  titled  head,  Lord  Vellan  of  Nor- 
shingfield,  was  his  uncle  ;  he  was  good-looking, 
amiable,  amusing,  popular;  and  he  had  just 
won  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  (as 
junior  member  for  Sheffingham),  where,  since 
he  was  believed  to  be  ambitious  as  well  as 
clever,  it  was  generally  expected  that  he  would 
go  far. 

Then,  quite  suddenly,  he  had  applied  for  the 


124  GREY    ROSES 

Chiltern  Hundreds,  and  left  England.  His 
motives  for  this  unlikely  course  he  explained 
to  no  one.  To  a  few  intimate  friends  he  wrote 
brief  letters  of  farewell.  '  I  am  off  for  a  jour 
ney  round  the  world.  I  shall  be  gone  an  in 
definite  time.'  The  indefinite  time  ended  by 
defining  itself  as  upwards  of  thirty  years,  for 
the  first  twenty  of  which  only  his  solicitor  and 
his  bankers  could  have  given  you  his  address, 
and  they  wouldn't.  For  the  last  ten  he  was 
understood  to  be  living  in  the  island  of  Porto 
Rico,  and  planting  sugar.  Meanwhile  his  uncle 
had  died,  and  his  cousin  (his  uncle's  only  son) 
had  succeeded  to  the  peerage.  But  the  other 
day  his  cousin,  too,  had  died,  and  died  childless, 
so  that  the  estates  and  dignities  had  devolved 
upon  himself.  With  that,  a  return  to  England 
became  an  obligation ;  there  were  a  score 
of  minor  beneficiaries  under  his  cousin's  will, 
whose  legacies  could  not,  without  great  delay, 
be  paid  unless  the  new  lord  was  at  hand. 

II. 

Mrs  Sandryl-Kempton  sat  before  the  fire  in 
her  wide,  airy,  faded  drawing-room,  and  thought 


FLOWER  O1  THE  QUINCE     125 

of  the  Theodore  Vellan  of  old  days,  and  won 
dered  what  the  present  Lord  Vellan  would  be 
like.  She  had  got  a  note  from  him  that  morn 
ing,  despatched  from  Southampton  the  day 
before,  announcing,  'I  shall  be  in  town  to 
morrow — at  Bowden's  Hotel,  in  Cork  Street,' 
and  asking  when  he  might  come  to  her.  She 
had  answered  by  telegraph,  '  Come  and  dine  at 
eight  to-night,'  to  which  he  had  wired  back  an 
acceptance.  Thereupon,  she  had  told  her  son 
that  he  must  dine  at  his  club ;  and  now  she 
was  seated  before  her  fire,  waiting  for  Theodore 
Vellan  to  arrive,  and  thinking  of  thirty  years 
ago. 

She  was  a  bride  then,  and  her  husband,  her 
brother  Paul,  and  Theodore  Vellan  were  bound 
in  a  league  of  ardent  young-mannish  friendship, 
a  friendship  that  dated  from  the  time  when  they 
had  been  undergraduates  together  at  Oxford. 
She  thought  of  the  three  handsome,  happy, 
highly-endowed  young  men,  and  of  the  brilliant 
future  she  had  foreseen  for  each  of  them  :  her 
husband  at  the  Bar,  her  brother  in  the  Church, 
and  Vellan — not  in  politics,  she  could  never 
understand  his  political  aspirations,  they  seemed 
quite  at  odds  with  the  rest  of  his  character — 


126  GREY    ROSES 

but  in  literature,  as  a  poet,  for  he  wrote  verse 
which  she  considered  very  unusual  and  pleasing. 
She  thought  of  this,  and  then  she  remembered 
that  her  husband  was  dead,  that  her  brother 
was  dead,  and  that  Theodore  Vellan  had  been 
dead  to  his  world,  at  all  events,  for  thirty 
years.  Not  one  of  them  had  in  any  way 
distinguished  himself;  not  one  had  in  any 
measure  fulfilled  the  promise  of  his  youth. 

Her  memories  were  sweet  and  bitter ;  they 
made  her  heart  glow  and  ache.  Vellan,  as  she 
recalled  him,  had  been,  before  all  things,  gentle. 
He  was  witty,  he  had  humour,  he  had  imagina 
tion  ;  but  he  was,  before  all  things,  gentle — 
with  the  gentlest  voice,  the  gentlest  eyes,  the 
gentlest  manners.  His  gentleness,  she  told 
herself,  was  the  chief  element  of  his  charm — 
his  gentleness,  which  was  really  a  phase  of  his 
modesty.  '  He  was  very  gentle,  he  was  very 
modest,  he  was  very  graceful  and  kind,'  she 
said  ;  and  she  remembered  a  hundred  instances 
of  his  gentleness,  his  modesty,  his  kindness. 
Oh,  but  he  was  no  milksop.  He  had  plenty  of 
spirit,  plenty  of  fun ;  he  was  boyish,  he  could 
romp.  And  at  that,  a  scene  repeated  itself  to 
her  mind,  a  scene  that  had  passed  in  this  same 


FLOWER  O'  THE  QUINCE       127 

drawing-room  more  than  thirty  years  ago.  It 
was  tea-time,  and  on  the  tea-table  lay  a  dish  of 
pearl  biscuits,  and  she  and  her  husband  and 
Vellan  were  alone.  Her  husband  took  a  hand 
ful  of  pearl  biscuits,  and  tossed  them  one  by 
one  into  the  air,  while  Vellan  threw  back  his 
head,  and  caught  them  in  his  mouth  as  they 
came  down — that  was  one  of  his  accomplish-, 
ments.  She  smiled  as  she  remembered  it,  but 
at  the  same  time  she  put  her  handkerchief  to 
her  eyes. 

'  Why  did  he  go  away  ?  What  could  it  have 
been  ? '  she  wondered,  her  old  bewilderment  at 
his  conduct,  her  old  longing  to  comprehend  it, 
reviving  with  something  of  the  old  force. 
'  Could  it  have  been  .  .  .  ?  Could  it  have  been 
.  .  .  ? '  And  an  old  guess,  an  old  theory,  one 
she  had  never  spoken  to  anybody,  but  had 
pondered  much  in  silence,  again  presented  it 
self  interrogatively  to  her  mind. 

The  door  opened ;  the  butler  mumbled  a 
name  ;  and  she  saw  a  tall,  white-haired,  pale  old 
man  smiling  at  her  and  holding  out  his  hands. 
It  took  her  a  little  while  to  realise  who  it 
was.  With  an  unthinking  disallowance  for  the 
action  of  time,  she  had  been  expecting  a  young 


128  GREY    ROSES 

fellow  of  eight-and-twenty,  brown-haired  and 
ruddy. 

Perhaps  he,  on  his  side,  was  taken  aback  a 
little  to  meet  a  middle-aged  lady  in  a  cap. 


III. 


After  dinner  he  would  not  let  her  leave  him, 
but  returned  with  her  to  the  drawing-room, 
and  she  said  that  he  might  smoke.  He  smoked 
odd  little  Cuban  cigarettes,  whereof  the  odour 
was  delicate  and  aromatic.  They  had  talked 
of  everything ;  they  had  laughed  and  sighed 
over  their  ancient  joys  and  sorrows.  We  know 
how,  in  the  Courts  of  Memory,  Mirth  and  Melan 
choly  wander  hand  in  hand.  She  had  cried  a 
little  when  her  husband  and  her  brother  were 
first  spoken  of,  but  at  some  comic  reminiscence 
of  them,  a  moment  afterwards,  she  was  smiling 
through  her  tears.  '  Do  you  remember  so-and- 
so?'  and  'What  has  become  of  such-a-one?' 
were  types  of  the  questions  they  asked  each 
other,  conjuring  up  old  friends  and  enemies 
like  ghosts  out  of  the  past.  Incidentally,  he 
had  described  Porto  Rico  and  its  negroes 


FLOWER  O'  THE  QUINCE       129 

and  its  Spaniards,  its  climate,  its  fauna  and 
its  flora. 

In  the  drawing-room  they  sat  on  opposite 
sides  of  the  fire,  and  were  silent  for  a  bit.  Pro 
fiting  by  the  permission  she  had  given  him,  he 
produced  one  of  his  Cuban  cigarettes,  opened 
it  at  its  ends,  unrolled  it,  rolled  it  up  again, 
and  lit  it. 

'  Now  the  time  has  come  for  you  to  tell  me 
what  I  most  want  to  know,'  she  said. 

'What  is  that?' 

*  Why  you  went  away.' 

'  Oh,'  he  murmured. 

She  waited  a  minute.  Then,  'Tell  me,'  she 
urged. 

'  Do  you  remember  Mary  Isona  ? '  he  asked. 

She  glanced  up  at  him  suddenly,  as  if  startled. 
'  Mary  Isona  ?  Yes,  of  course.' 

'  Well,  I  was  in  love  with  her.' 

'You  were  in  love  with  Mary  Isona?' 

1 1  was  very  much  in  love  with  her.  I  have 
never  got  over  it,  I'm  afraid.' 

She  gazed  fixedly  at  the  fire.  Her  lips  were 
compressed.  She  saw  a  slender  girl,  in  a  plain 
black  frock,  with  a  sensitive,  pale  face,  luminous, 
sad,  dark  eyes,  and  a  mass  of  dark,  waving  hair — 


130  GREY    ROSES 

Mary  Isona,  of  Italian  parentage,  a  little  music 
teacher,  whose  only  relation  to  the  world  Theo 
dore  Vellan  lived  in  was  professional.  She 
came  into  it  for  an  hour  or  two  at  a  time  now 
and  then,  to  play  or  to  give  a  music  lesson. 

'  Yes,'  he  repeated  ;  '  I  was  in  love  with  her. 
I  have  never  been  in  love  with  any  other 
woman.  It  seems  ridiculous  for  an  old  man  to 
say  it,  but  I  am  in  love  with  her  still.  An  old 
man  ?  Are  we  ever  really  old  ?  Our  body 
grows  old,  our  skin  wrinkles,  our  hair  turns 
white;  but  the  mind,  the  spirit,  the  heart? 
The  thing  we  call  "  I  "  ?  Anyhow,  not  a  day, 
not  an  hour,  passes,  but  I  think  of  her,  I  long 
for  her,  I  mourn  for  her.  You  knew  her — 
ytm  knew  what  she  was.  Do  you  remember 
her  playing  ?  Her  wonderful  eyes  ?  Her  beauti 
ful  pale  face  ?  And  how  the  hair  grew  round 
her  forehead?  And  her  talk,  her  voice,  her 
intelligence !  Her  taste,  her  instinct,  in  litera 
ture,  in  art — it  was  the  finest  I  have  ever  met.' 

'Yes,  yes,  yes,'  Mrs.  Kempton  said  slowly. 
'She  was  a  rare  woman.  I  knew  her  intimately, 
— better  than  any  one  else,  I  think.  I  knew 
all  the  unhappy  circumstances  of  her  life  :  her 
horrid,  vulgar  mother  ;  her  poor,  dreamy,  in- 


efficient  father  ;  her  poverty,  how  hard  she  had 
to  work.  You  were  in  love  with  her.  Why 
didn't  you  marry  her  ?  ' 

'  My  love  was  not  returned.' 

'  Did  you  ask  her  ? ' 

'  No.  It  was  needless.  It  went  without 
saying.' 

'  You  never  can  tell.  You  ought  to  have 
asked  her.' 

'  It  was  on  the  tip  of  my  tongue,  of  course, 
to  do  so  a  hundred  times.  My  life  was  passed 
in  torturing  myself  with  the  question  whether 
I  had  any  chance,  in  hoping  and  fearing.  But 
as  often  as  I  found  myself  alone  with  her  I 
knew  it  was  hopeless.  Her  manner  to  me — 
it  was  one  of  frank  friendliness.  There  was  no 
mistaking  it.  She  never  thought  of  loving  me.' 

'  You  were  wrong  not  to  ask  her.  One 
never  can  be  sure.  Oh,  why  didn't  you  ask 
her  ?  '  His  old  friend  spoke  with  great  feeling. 

He  looked  at  her,  surprised  and  eager.  '  Do 
you  really  think  she  might  have  cared  for 
me?' 

'  Oh,  you  ought  to  have  told  her  :  you  ought 
to  have  asked  her,'  she  repeated. 

*  Well — now  you  know  why  I  went  away.' 


132  GREY    ROSES 

•Yes.' 

'  When  I  heard  of  her — her — death  ' — he 
could  not  bring  himself  to  say  her  suicide — 
4  there  was  nothing  else  for  me  to  do.  It  was 
so  hideous,  so  unutterable.  To  go  on  with  my 
old  life,  in  the  old  place,  among  the  old  people, 
was  quite  impossible.  I  wanted  to  follow  her, 
to  do  what  she  had  done.  The  only  alterna 
tive  was  to  fly  as  far  from  England,  as  far 
from  myself,  as  I  could.' 

'Sometimes,'  Mrs.  Kempton  confessed  by- 
and-bye,  'sometimes  I  wondered  whether,  pos 
sibly,  your  disappearance  could  have  had  any 
such  connection  with  Mary's  death — it  followed 
it  so  immediately.  I  wondered  sometimes 
whether,  perhaps,  you  had  cared  for  her.  But 
I  couldn't  believe  it — it  was  only  because  the 
two  things  happened  one  upon  the  other.  Oh, 
why  didn't  you  tell  her?  It  is  dreadful, 
dreadful!' 


IV. 


When  he  had  left  her,  she  sat  still  for  a  little 
while  before  the  fire. 

'Life    is    a   chance   to   make   mistakes — a 


FLOWER  O'  THE  QUINCE       133 

chance  to  make  mistakes.  Life  is  a  chance  to 
make  mistakes.' 

It  was  a  phrase  she  had  met  in  a  book  she 
was  reading  the  other  day :  then  she  had 
smiled  at  it ;  now  it  rang  in  her  ears  like  the 
voice  of  a  mocking  demon. 

'  Yes,  a  chance  to  make  mistakes,'  she  said, 
half  aloud. 

She  rose  and  went  to  her  desk,  unlocked  a 
drawer,  turned  over  its  contents,  and  took  out 
a  letter  —  an  old  letter,  for  the  paper  was 
yellow  and  the  ink  was  faded.  She  came 
back  to  the  fireside,  and  unfolded  the  letter 
and  read  it.  It  covered  six  pages  of  note- 
paper,  in  a  small  feminine  hand.  It  was  a 
letter  Mary  Isona  had  written  to  her,  Margaret 
Kempton,  the  night  before  she  died,  more 
than  thirty  years  ago.  The  writer  recounted 
the  many  harsh  circumstances  of  her  life ;  but 
they  would  all  have  been  bearable,  she  said, 
save  for  one  great  and  terrible  secret.  She 
had  fallen  in  love  with  a  man  who  was  scarcely 
conscious  of  her  existence ;  she,  a  little  obscure 
Italian  music  teacher,  had  fallen  in  love  with 
Theodore  Vellan.  It  was  as  if  she  had  fallen 
in  love  with  an  inhabitant  of  another  planet : 


134  GREY  ROSES 

the  worlds  they  respectively  belonged  to  were 
so  far  apart.  She  loved  him — she  loved  him — 
and  she  knew  her  love  was  hopeless,  and  she 
could  not  bear  it.  Oh,  yes ;  she  met  him 
sometimes,  here  and  there,  at  houses  she  went 
to  to  play,  to  give  lessons.  He  was  civil  to 
her :  he  was  more  than  civil — he  was  kind  ;  he 
talked  to  her  about  literature  and  music.  '  He 
is  so  gentle,  so  strong,  so  wise ;  but  he  has 
never  thought  of  me  as  a  woman — a  woman 
who  could  love,  who  could  be  loved.  Why 
should  he  ?  If  the  moth  falls  in  love  with  the 
star,  the  moth  must  suffer.  ...  I  am 
cowardly ;  I  am  weak ;  I  am  what  you  will ; 
but  I  have  more  than  I  can  bear.  Life  is  too 
hard — too  hard.  To-morrow  I  shall  be  dead. 
You  will  be  the  only  person  to  know  why  I 
died,  and  you  will  keep  my  secret.' 

'  Oh,  the  pity  of  it — the  pity  of  it ! '  mur 
mured  Mrs.  Kempton.  '  I  wonder  whether 
I  ought  to  have  shown  him  Mary's  letter.' 


WHEN    I   AM   KING 

'  Qu'yfaire,  mon  Dieu,  qu'y  faire?' 

I  HAD  wandered  into  a  tangle  of  slummy 
streets,  and  began  to  think  it  time  to  inquire 
my  way  back  to  the  hotel :  then,  turning  a 
corner,  I  came  out  upon  the  quays.  At  one 
hand  there  was  the  open  night,  with  the  dim 
forms  of  many  ships,  and  stars  hanging  in  a 
web  of  masts  and  cordage ;  at  the  other,  the 
garish  illumination  of  a  row  of  public-houses : 
Au  Bonheur  du  Matelot,  Cafe"  de  la  Marine, 
Brasserie  des  Quatre  Vents,  and  so  forth; 
rowdy-looking  shops  enough,  designed  for  the 
entertainment  of  the  forecastle.  But  they 
seemed  to  promise  something  in  the  nature  of 
local  colour;  and  I  entered  the  Brasserie  des 
Quatre  Vents. 

It  proved  to  be  a  brasserie-a-femmes ;  you 
were  waited  upon  by  ladies,  lavishly  rouged 
and  in  regardless  toilets,  who  would  sit  with 
you  and  chat,  and  partake  of  refreshments  at 


136  GREY    ROSES 

your  expense.  The  front  part  of  the  room  was 
filled  up  with  tables,  where  half  a  hundred 
customers,  talking  at  the  top  of  their  voices, 
raised  a  horrid  din — sailors,  soldiers,  a  few  who 
might  be  clerks  or  tradesmen,  and  an  occasional 
workman  in  his  blouse.  Beyond,  there  was  a 
cleared  space,  reserved  for  dancing,  occupied 
by  a  dozen  couples,  clumsily  toeing  it ;  and  on 
a  platform,  at  the  far  end,  a  man  pounded  a 
piano.  All  this  in  an  atmosphere  hot  as  a 
furnace-blast,  and  poisonous  with  the  fumes  of 
gas,  the  smells  of  bad  tobacco,  of  musk,  alcohol, 
and  humanity. 

The  musician  faced  away  from  the  company, 
so  that  only  his  shoulders  and  the  back  of  his 
grey  head  were  visible,  bent  over  his  keyboard. 
It  was  sad  to  see  a  grey  head  in  that  situation ; 
and  one  wondered  what  had  brought  it  there, 
what  story  of  vice  or  weakness  or  evil  fortune. 
Though  his  instrument  was  harsh,  and  he  had 
to  bang  it  violently  to  be  heard  above  the  roar 
of  conversation,  the  man  played  with  a  kind  of 
cleverness,  and  with  certain  fugitive  suggestions 
of  good  style.  He  had  once  studied  an  art, 
and  had  hopes  and  aspirations,  who  now,  in 
his  age,  was  come  to  serve  the  revels  of  a  set 


WHEN    I    AM    KING         137 

of  drunken  sailors,  in  a  disreputable  tavern, 
where  they  danced  with  prostitutes.  I  don't 
know  why,  but  from  the  first  he  drew  my  at 
tention  ;  and  I  left  my  handmaid  to  count  her 
charms  neglected,  while  I  sat  and  watched  him, 
speculating  about  him  in  a  melancholy  way, 
with  a  sort  of  vicarious  shame. 

But  presently  something  happened  to  make 
me  forget  him — something  of  his  own  doing. 
A  dance  had  ended,  and  after  a  breathing  spell 
he  began  to  play  an  interlude.  It  was  an  in 
stance  of  how  tunes,  like  perfumes,  have  the 
power  to  wake  sleeping  memories.  The  tune 
he  was  playing  now,  simple  and  dreamy  like  a 
lullaby,  and  strangely  at  variance  with  the 
surroundings,  whisked  me  off  in  a  twinkling, 
far  from  the  actual — ten,  fifteen  years  back 
wards — to  my  student  life  in  Paris,  and  set  me 
to  thinking,  as  I  had  not  thought  for  many  a 
long  day,  of  my  hero,  friend,  and  comrade, 
Edmund  Pair  ;  for  it  was  a  tune  of  Pair's  com 
position,  a  melody  he  had  written  to  a  nursery 
rhyme,  and  used  to  sing  a  good  deal,  half 
in  fun,  half  in  earnest,  to  his  lady-love, 
Godelinette: 


138  GREY    ROSES 

'  Lavender's  blue,  diddle-diddle, 

Lavender's  green  ; 
When  I  am  king,  diddle-diddle, 
You  shall  be  queen.' 

It  is  certain  he  meant  very  seriously  that  if  he 
ever  came  into  his  kingdom,  Godelinette  should 
be  queen.  The  song  had  been  printed,  but,  so 
far  as  I  knew,  had  never  had  much  vogue ;  and 
it  seemed  an  odd  chance  that  this  evening,  in 
a  French  seaport  town  where  I  was  passing  a 
single  night,  I  should  stray  by  hazard  into  a 
sailors'  pothouse  and  hear  it  again. 

Edmund  Pair  lived  in  the  Latin  Quarter 
when  I  did,  but  he  was  no  longer  a  mere 
student.  He  had  published  a  good  many 
songs ;  articles  had  been  written  about  them 
in  the  newspapers ;  and  at  his  rooms  you 
would  meet  the  men  who  had  'arrived' — 
actors,  painters,  musicians,  authors,  and  now 
and  then  a  politician — who  thus  recognised 
him  as  more  or  less  one  of  themselves.  Every 
body  liked  him  ;  everybody  said,  '  He  is  splen 
didly  gifted ;  he  will  go  far.'  A  few  of  us 
already  addressed  him,  half-playfully  perhaps, 
as  cher  maitre. 


WHEN    I    AM    KING          139 

He  was  three  or  four  years  older  than  I — 
eight-  or  nine-and-twenty  to  my  twenty-five — 
and  I  was  still  in  the  schools ;  but  for  all  that 
we  were  great  chums.  Quite  apart  from  his 
special  talent,  he  was  a  remarkable  man — 
amusing  in  talk,  good-looking,  generous,  affec 
tionate.  He  had  read ;  he  had  travelled ;  he 
had  hob-and-nobbed  with  all  sorts  and  condi 
tions  of  people.  He  had  wit,  imagination, 
humour,  and  a  voice  that  made  whatever  he 
said  a  cordial  to  the  ear.  For  myself,  I  ad 
mired  him,  enjoyed  him,  loved  him,  with  equal 
fervour  ;  he  had  all  of  my  hero-worship,  and  the 
lion's  share  of  my  friendship ;  perhaps  I  was 
vain  as  well  as  glad  to  be  distinguished  by  his 
intimacy.  We  used  to  spend  two  or  three 
evenings  a  week  together,  at  his  place  or  at 
mine,  or  over  the  table  of  a  cafe",  talking  till 
the  small  hours — Elysian  sessions,  at  which  we 
smoked  more  cigarettes  and  emptied  more  bocks 
than  I  should  care  to  count.  On  Sundays  and 
holidays  we  would  take  long  walks  arm-in-arm 
in  the  Bois,  or,  accompanied  by  Godelinette,  go 
to  Viroflay  or  Fontainebleau,  lunch  in  the  open, 
bedeck  our  hats  with  wildflowers,  and  romp 
like  children.  He  was  tall  and  slender,  with 


140  GREY    ROSES 

dark  waving  hair,  a  delicate  aquiline  profile,  a 
clear  brown  skin,  and  grey  eyes,  alert,  intelli 
gent,  kindly.  I  fancy  the  Boulevard  St.  Michel, 
flooded  with  sunshine,  broken  here  and  there 
by  long  crisp  shadows;  trams  and  omnibuses 
toiling  up  the  hill,  tooting  their  horns  ;  students 
and  ttudiantes  sauntering  gaily  backwards  and 
forwards  on  the  trottoir ;  an  odour  of  asphalte, 
of  caporal  tobacco ;  myself  one  of  the  multitude 
on  the  terrace  of  a  cafe";  and  Edmund  and 
Godelinette  coming  to  join  me — he  with  his 
swinging  stride,  a  gesture  of  salutation,  a 
laughing  face  ;  she  in  the  freshest  of  bright- 
coloured  spring  toilets :  I  fancy  this,  and  it 
seems  an  adventure  of  the  golden  age.  Then 
we  would  drink  our  aplritifs,  our  Turin  bitter, 
perhaps  our  absinthe,  and  go  off  to  dine  to 
gether  in  the  garden  at  Lavenue's. 

Godelinette  was  a  child  of  the  people,  but 
Pair  had  done  wonders  by  way  of  civilising  her. 
She  had  learned  English,  and  prattled  it  with 
an  accent  so  quaint  and  sprightly  as  to  give 
point  to  her  otherwise  perhaps  somewhat 
commonplace  observations.  She  was  fond  of 
reading ;  she  could  play  a  little ;  she  was  an 
excellent  housewife,  and  generally  a  very  good- 


WHEN    I   AM    KING         141 

natured  and  quite  presentable  little  person. 
She  was  Parisian  and  adaptable.  To  meet  her, 
you  would  never  have  suspected  her  origin  ; 
you  would  have  found  it  hard  to  believe  that 
she  had  been  the  wife  of  a  drunken  tailor,  who 
used  to  beat  her.  One  January  night,  four  or 
five  years  before,  Pair  had  surprised  this  gentle 
man  publicly  pummelling  her  in  the  Rue  Gay- 
Lussac.  H chastened  to  remonstrate  ;  and  the 
husband  went  off,  hiccoughing  of  his  outraged 
rights,  and  calling  the  universe  to  witness  that 
he  would  have  the  law  of  the  meddling  stranger. 
Pair  picked  the  girl  up  (she  was  scarcely 
eighteen  then,  and  had  only  been  married  a 
sixmonth),  he  picked  her  up  from  where  she 
had  fallen,  half  fainting,  on  the  pavement, 
carried  her  to  his  lodgings,  which  were  at 
hand,  and  sent  for  a  doctor.  In  his  manu 
script-littered  study,  for  rather  more  than  nine 
weeks,  she  lay  on  a  bed  of  fever,  the  consequence 
of  blows,  exhaustion,  and  exposure.  When 
she  got  well  there  was  no  talk  of  her  leaving. 
Pair  couldn't  let  her  go  back  to  her  tailor ;  he 
couldn't  turn  her  into  the  streets.  Besides, 
during  the  months  that  he  had  nursed  her,  he 
had  somehow  conceived  a  great  tenderness  for 


142  GREY    ROSES 

her;  it  made  his  heart  burn  with  grief  and 
anger  to  think  of  what  she  had  suffered  in  the 
past,  and  he  yearned  to  sustain  and  protect 
and  comfort  her  for  the  future.  This  perhaps 
was  no  more  than  natural ;  but,  what  rather 
upset  the  calculations  of  his  friends,  she,  to 
wards  whom  he  had  established  himself  in  the 
relation  of  a  benefactor,  bore  him,  instead  of  a 
grudge  therefor,  a  passionate  gratitude  and 
affection.  So,  Pair  said,  they  were  only  waiting 
till  her  tailor  should  drink  himself  to  death,  to 
get  married ;  and  meanwhile,  he  exacted  for 
her  all  the  respect  that  would  have  been  due 
to  his  wife ;  and  everybody  called  her  by  his 
name.  She  was  a  pretty  little  thing,  very 
daintily  formed,  with  tiny  hands  and  feet,  and 
big  gipsyish  brown  eyes ;  and  very  delicate, 
very  fragile — she  looked  as  if  anything  might 
carry  her  off.  Her  name,  Godeleine,  seeming 
much  too  grand  and  mediaeval  for  so  small 
and  actual  a  person,  Pair  had  turned  it  into 
Godelinette. 

We  all  said,  '  He  is  splendidly  gifted  ;  he  will 
do  great  things.'  He  had  studied  at  Cambridge 
and  at  Leipsic  before  coming  to  Paris.  He  was 
learned,  enlightened,  and  extremely  modern ; 


WHEN    I    AM    KING          143 

he  was  a  hard  worker.  We  said  he  would  do 
great  things ;  but  I  thought  in  those  days,  and 
indeed  I  still  think — and,  what  is  more  to  the 
purpose,  men  who  were  themselves  musicians 
and  composers,  men  whose  names  are  known, 
were  before  me  in  thinking — that  he  had  al 
ready  done  great  things,  that  the  songs  he  had 
already  published  were  achievements.  They 
seemed  to  us  original  in  conception,  accom 
plished  and  felicitous  in  treatment  ;  they  were 
full  of  melody  and  movement,  full  of  harmonic 
surprises ;  they  had  style  and  they  had  '  go.' 
One  would  have  imagined  they  must  please  at 
once  the  cultivated  and  the  general  public.  I 
could  never  understand  why  they  weren't 
popular.  They  would  be  printed  ;  they  would 
be  praised  at  length,  and  under  distinguished 
signatures,  in  the  reviews ;  they  would  enjoy 
an  unusual  success  of  approbation ;  but — they 
wouldn't  sell,  and  they  wouldn't  get  themselves 
sung  at  concerts.  If  they  had  been  too  good, 
if  they  had  been  over  the  heads  of  people — but 
they  weren't.  Plenty  of  work  quite  as  good, 
quite  as  modern,  yet  no  whit  more  tuneful  or 
interesting,  was  making  its  authors  rich.  We 
couldn't  understand  it,  we  had  to  conclude  it 


144  GREY    ROSES 

was  a  fluke,  a  question  of  chance,  of  accident. 
Pair  was  still  a  very  young  man ;  he  must  go 
on  knocking,  and  some  day — to-morrow,  next 
week,  next  year,  but  some  day  certainly — the 
door  of  public  favour  would  be  opened  to  him. 
Meanwhile  his  position  was  by  no  means  an 
unenviable  one,  goodness  knows.  To  have  your 
orbit  in  the  art  world  of  Paris,  and  to  be  recog 
nised  there  as  a  star ;  to  be  written  about  in 
the  Revue  des  Deux- Mondes ;  to  possess  the 
friendship  of  the  masters,  to  know  that  they 
believe  in  you,  to  hear  them  prophesy,  '  He  will 
do  great  things ' — all  that  is  something,  even  if 
your  wares  don't '  take  on '  in  the  market-place. 
'  It's  a  good  job,  though,  that  I  haven't  got 
to  live  by  them,'  Pair  said ;  and  there  indeed 
he  touched  a  salient  point.  His  people  were 
dead ;  his  father  had  been  a  younger  son ;  he 
had  no  money  of  his  own.  But  his  father's 
elder  brother,  a  squire  in  Hampshire,  made 
him  rather  a  liberal  allowance, — something  like 
six  hundred  a  year,  I  believe,  which  was 
opulence  in  the  Latin  Quarter.  Now,  the 
squire  had  been  aware  of  Pair's  relation  with 
Godelinette  from  its  inception,  and  had  not 
disapproved.  On  his  visits  to  Paris  he  had 


WHEN    I    AM    KING          145 

dined  with  them,  given  them  dinners,  and 
treated  her  with  the  utmost  complaisance. 
But  when,  one  fine  morning,  her  tailor  died, 
and  my  quixotic  friend  announced  his  intention 
of  marrying  her,  dans  les  dtlais  leganx,  the 
squire  protested.  I  think  I  read  the  whole 
correspondence,  and  I  remember  that  in  the 
beginning  the  elder  man  took  the  tone  of 
paradox  and  banter.  'Behave  dishonourably, 
my  dear  fellow.  I  have  winked  at  your  mis 
tress  heretofore,  because  boys  will  be  boys; 
but  it  is  the  man  who  marries.  And,  anyhow, 
a  woman  is  so  much  more  interesting  in  a  false 
position.'  But  he  soon  became  serious,  pre 
sently  furious,  and,  when  the  marriage  was  an 
accomplished  fact,  cut  off  the  funds. 

1  Never  mind,  my  dear,'  said  Pair.  '  We  will 
go  to  London  and  seek  our  fortune.  We  will 
write  the  songs  of  the  people,  and  let  who  will 
make  the  laws.  We  will  grow  rich  and  famous, 
and 

"  When  I  am  king,  diddle-diddle, 
You  shall  be  queen  1 " ' 

So  they  went  to  London  to  seek  their  for- 
K 


146  GREY    ROSES 

tune,  and — that  was  the  last  I  ever  saw  of 
them,  nearly  the  last  I  heard.  I  had  two 
letters  from  Pair,  written  within  a  month  of 
their  hegira — gossipy,  light-hearted  letters,  de 
scribing  the  people  they  were  meeting,  reporting 
Godelinette's  quaint  observations  upon  England 
and  English  things,  explaining  his  hopes,  his 
intentions,  all  very  confidently — and  then  I  had 
no  more.  I  wrote  again,  and  still  again,  till, 
getting  no  answer,  of  course  I  ceased  to  write. 
I  was  hurt  and  puzzled  ;  but  in  the  spring  we 
should  meet  in  London,  and  could  have  it  out. 
When  the  spring  came,  however,  my  plans 
were  altered  :  I  had  to  go  to  America.  I  went 
by  way  of  Havre,  expecting  to  stay  six  weeks, 
and  was  gone  six  years. 

On  my  return  to  England  I  said  to  people, 
'You  have  a  brilliant  young  composer  named 
Pair.  Can  you  put  me  in  the  way  of  procuring 
his  address?'  The  fortune  he  had  come  to 
seek  he  would  surely  have  found  ;  he  would  be 
a  known  man.  But  people  looked  blank,  and 
declared  they  had  never  heard  of  him.  I 
applied  to  music-publishers — with  the  same 
result.  I  wrote  to  his  uncle  in  Hampshire ; 
the  squire  did  not  reply.  When  I  reached 


WHEN   I    AM    KING         147 

Paris  I  inquired  of  our  friends  there  ;  they  were 
as  ignorant  as  I.  '  He  must  be  dead/  I  con 
cluded.  'If  he  had  lived,  it  is  impossible 
we  should  not  have  heard  of  him.'  And  I 
wondered  what  had  become  of  Godelinette. 

Then  another  eight  or  ten  years  passed,  and 
now,  in  a  waterside  public  at  Bordeaux,  an 
obscure  old  pianist  was  playing  Pair's  setting 
of  '  Lavender's  blue,'  and  stirring  a  hundred 
bitter-sweet  far-away  memories  of  my  friend. 
It  was  as  if  fifteen  years  were  erased  from  my 
life.  The  face  of  Godelinette  was  palpable 
before  me — pale,  with  its  sad  little  smile,  its 
bright  appealing  eyes.  Edmund  might  have 
been  smoking  across  the  table — I  could  hear 
his  voice,  I  could  have  put  out  my  hand  and 
touched  him.  And  all  round  me  were  the 
streets,  the  lights,  the  smells,  the  busy  youthful 
va-et-ment  of  the  Latin  Quarter ;  and  in  my 
heart  the  yearning,  half  joy  and  all  despair 
and  anguish,  with  which  we  think  of  the  old 
days  when  we  were  young,  of  how  real  and 
dear  they  were,  of  how  irrecoverable  they  are. 

And  then  the  music  stopped,  the  Brasserie 
des  Quatre  Vents  became  a  glaring  reality,  and 
the  painted  female  sipping  eau-de-vie  at  my 


148  GREY    ROSES 

elbow  remarked  plaintively,  '  Tu  n'es  pas  rigolo, 
toi.  Veux-tu  faire  une  valse  ? ' 

'  I  must  speak  to  your  musician,'  I  said. 
'  Excuse  me.' 

He  had  played  a  bit  of  Pair's  music.  It  was 
one  chance  in  a  thousand,  but  I  wanted  to  ask 
him  whether  he  could  tell  me  anything  about 
the  composer.  So  I  penetrated  to  the  bottom 
of  the  shop,  and  approached  his  platform.  He 
was  bending  over  some  sheets  of  music — making 
his  next  selection,  doubtless. 

'  I  beg  your  pardon ,'  I  began. 

He  turned  towards  me.  You  will  not  be 
surprised — I  was  looking  into  Pair's  own  face. 

You  will  not  be  surprised,  but  you  will 
imagine  what  it  was  for  me.  Oh,  yes,  I  recog 
nised  him  instantly ;  there  could  be  no  mistake. 
And  he  recognised  me,  for  he  flushed,  and 
winced,  and  started  back. 

I  suppose  for  a  little  while  we  were  both  of 
us  speechless,  speechless  and  motionless,  while 
our  hearts  stopped  beating.  By-and-by  I 
think  I  said — something  had  to  be  said  to 
break  the  situation — I  think  I  said,  '  It's  you, 
Edmund?'  I  remember  he  fumbled  with  a 


WHEN   I    AM    KING         149 

sheet  of  music,  and  kept  his  eyes  bent  on  it, 
and  muttered  something  inarticulate.  Then 
there  was  another  speechless,  helpless  suspen 
sion.  He  continued  to  fumble  his  music  with 
out  looking  up.  At  last  I  remember  saying, 
through  a  sort  of  sickness  and  giddiness,  '  Let 
us  get  out  of  here — where  we  can  talk.' 

'  I  can't  leave  yet.  I've  got  another  dance,' 
he  answered. 

'  Well,  I'll  wait,'  said  I. 

I  sat  down  near  him  and  waited,  trying  to 
create  some  kind  of  order  out  of  the  chaos  in 
my  mind,  and  half  automatically  watching  and 
considering  him  as  he  played  his  dance — 
Edmund  Pair  playing  a  dance  for  prostitutes 
and  drunken  sailors.  He  was  not  greatly 
changed.  There  were  the  same  grey  eyes, 
deep-set  and  wide  apart,  under  the  same  broad 
forehead;  the  same  fine  nose  and  chin,  the 
same  sensitive  mouth.  The  whole  face  was 
pretty  much  the  same,  only  thinner  perhaps, 
and  with  a  look  of  apathy,  of  inanimation,  that 
was  foreign  to  my  recollection  of  it.  His  hair 
had  turned  quite  white,  but  otherwise  he  ap 
peared  no  older  than  his  years.  His  figure, 
tall,  slender,  well-knit,  retained  its  vigour  and 


ISO  GREY    ROSES 

its  distinction.  Though  he  wore  a  shabby 
brown  Norfolk  jacket,  and  his  beard  was  two 
days  old,  you  could  in  no  circumstances  have 
taken  him  for  anything  but  a  gentleman.  I 
waited  anxiously  for  the  time  when  we  should 
be  alone — anxiously,  yet  with  a  sort  of  terror. 
I  was  burning  to  understand,  and  yet  I  shrunk 
from  doing  so.  If  to  conjecture  even  vaguely 
what  experiences  could  have  brought  him  to 
this,  what  dark  things  suffered  or  done,  had 
been  melancholy  when  he  was  a  nameless  old 
musician,  now  it  was  appalling,  and  I  dreaded 
the  explanation  that  I  longed  to  hear. 

At  last  he  struck  his  final  chord,  and  rose 
from  the  piano.  Then  he  turned  to  me  and 
said,  composedly  enough,  'Well,  I'm  ready.' 
He,  apparently,  had  in  some  measure  pulled 
himself  together.  In  the  street  he  took  my  arm. 
'  Let's  walk  in  this  direction,'  he  said,  leading 
off,  '  towards  the  Christian  quarter  of  the  town.' 
And  in  a  moment  he  went  on :  '  This  has 
been  an  odd  meeting.  What  brings  you  to 
Bordeaux  ? ' 

I  explained  that  I  was  on  my  way  to  Biarritz, 
stopping  for  the  night  between  two  trains. 

'  Then  it's  all  the  more  surprising  that  you 


WHEN    I    AM    KING          151 

should  have  stumbled  into  the  Brasserie  des 
Quatre  Vents.  You've  altered  very  slightly. 
The  world  wags  well  with  you?  You  look 
prosperous.' 

I  cried  out  some  incoherent  protest.  After 
wards  I  said,  '  You  know  what  I  want  to  hear. 
What  does  this  mean  ? ' 

He  laughed  nervously.  '  Oh,  the  meaning's 
clear  enough.  It  speaks  for  itself.' 

*  I  don't  understand,'  said  I. 

'I'm  pianist  to  the  Brasserie  des  Quatre 
Vents.  You  saw  me  in  the  discharge  of  my 
duties.' 

'  I  don't  understand,'  I  repeated  helplessly. 

'  And  yet  the  inference  is  plain.  What  could 
have  brought  a  man  to  such  a  pass  save  drink 
or  evil  courses  ? ' 

'  Oh,  don't  trifle,'  I  implored  him. 

'I'm  not  trifling.  That's  the  worst  of  it. 
For  I  don't  drink,  and  I'm  not  conscious  of 
having  pursued  any  especially  evil  courses.' 

'  Well  ? '  I  questioned.     '  Well  ? ' 

'  The  fact  of  the  matter  simply  is  that  I'm 
what  they  call  a  failure.  I  never  came  off.' 

'  I  don't  understand,'  I  repeated  for  a  third 
time. 


152  GREY  ROSES 

'No  more  do  I,  if  you  come  to  that.  It's 
the  will  of  Heaven,  I  suppose.  Anyhow,  it 
can't  puzzle  you  more  than  it  puzzles  me.  It 
seems  contrary  to  the  whole  logic  of  circum 
stances,  but  it's  the  fact' 

Thus  far  he  had  spoken  listlessly,  with  a 
sort  of  bitter  levity,  an  affectation  of  indiffer 
ence;  but  after  a  little  silence  his  mood  ap 
peared  to  change.  His  hand  upon  my  arm 
tightened  its  grasp,  and  he  began  to  speak 
rapidly,  feelingly. 

'  Do  you  realise  that  it  is  nearly  fifteen  years 
since  we  have  seen  each  other  ?  The  history 
of  those  fifteen  years,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
has  been  the  history  of  a  single  uninterrupted 
dtoeine — one  continuous  run  of  ill-luck,  against 
every  probability  of  the  game,  against  every 
effort  I  could  make  to  play  my  cards  effec 
tively.  When  I  started  out,  one  might  have 
thought,  I  had  the  best  of  chances.  I  had 
studied  hard  ;  I  worked  hard.  I  surely  had  as 
much  general  intelligence,  as  much  special 
knowledge,  as  much  apparent  talent,  as  my 
competitors.  And  the  stuff  I  produced  seemed 
good  to  you,  to  my  friends,  and  not  wholly 
bad  to  me.  It  was  musician  ly,  it  was  melodi- 


WHEN   I   AM    KING  153 

ous,  it  was  sincere ;  the  critics  all  praised  it ; 
but — it  never  took  on !  The  public  wouldn't 
have  it.  What  did  it  lack?  I  don't  know. 
At  last  I  couldn't  even  get  it  published — in 
visible  ink !  And  I  had  a  wife  to  support.' 

He  paused  for  a  minute;  then:  'You  see/ he 
said,  'we  made  the  mistake,  when  we  were 
young,  of  believing,  against  wise  authority,  that 
it  was  in  mortals  to  command  success,  that  he 
could  command  it  who  deserved  it  We  be 
lieved  that  the  race  would  be  to  the  swift,  the 
battle  to  the  strong;  that  a  man  was  re 
sponsible  for  his  own  destiny,  that  he'd  get 
what  he  merited.  We  believed  that  honest 
labour  couldn't  go  unrewarded.  An  immense 
mistake.  Success  is  an  affair  of  temperament, 
like  faith,  like  love,  like  the  colour  of  your  hair. 
Oh,  the  old  story  about  industry,  resolution, 
and  no  vices !  I  was  industrious,  I  was 
resolute,  and  I  had  no  more  than  the  common 
share  of  vices.  But  I  had  the  unsuccessful 
temperament ;  and  here  I  am.  If  my  motives 
had  been  ignoble — but  I  can't  see  that  they 
were.  I  wanted  to  earn  a  decent  living;  I 
wanted  to  justify  my  existence  by  doing  some 
thing  worthy  of  the  world's  acceptance.  But 


154  GREY    ROSES 

the  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against  me.  I 
have  tried  hard  to  convince  myself  that  the 
music  I  wrote  was  rubbish.  It  had  its  faults, 
no  doubt.  It  wasn't  great,  it  wasn't  epoch- 
making.  But,  as  music  goes  nowadays,  it  was 
jolly  good.  It  was  a  jolly  sight  better  than 
the  average.' 

'Oh,  that  is  certain,  that  is  certain/  I  ex 
claimed,  as  he  paused  again. 

'Well,  anyhow,  it  didn't  sell,  and  at  last  I 
couldn't  even  get  it  published.  So  then  I  tried 
to  find  other  work.  I  tried  everything.  I 
tried  to  teach — harmony  and  the  theory  of 
composition.  I  couldn't  get  pupils.  So  few 
people  want  to  study  that  sort  of  thing,  and 
there  were  good  masters  already  in  the  place. 
If  I  had  known  how  to  play,  indeed !  But  I 
was  never  better  than  a  fifth-rate  executant ; 
I  had  never  gone  in  for  that ;  my  "  lay "  was 
composition.  I  couldn't  give  piano  lessons,  I 
couldn't  play  in  public — unless  in  a  gargotte 
like  the  hole  we  have  just  left.  Oh,  I  tried 
everything.  I  tried  to  get  musical  criticism  to 
do  for  the  newspapers.  Surely  I  was  com 
petent  to  do  musical  criticism.  But  no — they 
wouldn't  employ  me.  I  had  ill  luck,  ill  luck, 


WHEN   I   AM    KING          155 

ill  luck — nothing  but  ill  luck,  defeat,  disappoint 
ment.  Was  it  the  will  of  Heaven?  I  wondered 
what  unforgiveable  sin  I  had  committed  to  be 
punished  so.  Do  you  know  what  it  is  like  to 
work  and  pray  and  wait,  day  after  day,  and 
watch  day  after  day  come  and  go  and  bring 
you  nothing  ?  Oh,  I  tasted  the  whole  heart- 
sickness  of  hope  deferred ;  Giant  Despair  was 
my  constant  bed-fellow.' 

'  But — with  your  connections '  I  began. 

'  Oh,  my  connections ! '  he  cried.  '  There 
was  the  rub.  London  is  the  cruellest  town  in 
Europe.  For  sheer  cold  blood  and  heartless- 
ness  give  Londoners  the  palm.  I  had  connec 
tions  enough  for  the  first  month  or  so,  and  then 
people  found  out  things  that  didn't  concern  them. 
They  found  out  some  things  that  were  true, 
and  they  imagined  other  things  that  were  false. 
They  wouldn't  have  my  wife ;  they  told  the 
most  infamous  lies  about  her ;  and  I  wouldn't 
have  them.  Could  I  be  civil  to  people  who 
insulted  and  slandered  ker?  I  had  no  con 
nections  in  London,  except  with  the  under 
world.  I  got  down  to  copying  parts  for  thea 
trical  orchestras ;  and  working  twelve  hours  a 
day,  earned  about  thirty  shillings  a  week.' 


i$6  GREY   ROSES 

'  You  might  have  come  back  to  Paris.' 

'And  fared  worse.  I  couldn't  have  earned 
thirty  pence  in  Paris.  Mind  you,  the  only 
trade  I  had  learned  was  that  of  a  musical  com 
poser;  and  I  couldn't  compose  music  that 
people  would  buy.  I  should  have  starved  as  a 
copyist  in  Paris,  where  copyists  are  more  num 
erous  and  worse  paid.  Teach  there  ?  But  to 
one  competent  master  of  harmony  in  London 
there  are  ten  in  Paris.  No ;  it  was  a  hopeless 
case.' 

'  It  is  incomprehensible — incomprehensible/ 
said  I. 

'  But  wait — wait  till  you've  heard  the  end. 
One  would  think  I  had  had  enough — not  so  ? 
One  would  think  my  cup  of  bitterness  was  full. 
No  fear!  There  was  a  stronger  cup  still  a- 
brewing  for  me.  When  Fortune  takes  a 
grudge  against  a  man,  she  never  lets  up.  She 
exacts  the  uttermost  farthing.  I  was  pretty 
badly  off,  but  I  had  one  treasure  left — I  had 
Godelinette.  I  used  to  think  that  she  was  my 
compensation.  I  would  say  to  myself,  "A 
man  can't  have  all  blessings.  How  can  you 
expect  others,  when  you've  got  her  ? "  And  I 
would  accuse  myself  of  ingratitude  for  com- 


WHEN  I   AM    KING  157 

plaining  of  my  unsuccess.  Then  she  fell  ill. 
My  God,  how  I  watched  over,  prayed  over  her! 
It  seemed  impossible — I  could  not  believe — 
that  she  would  be  taken  from  me.  Yet,  Harry, 
do  you  know  what  that  poor  child  was  think 
ing  ?  Do  you  know  what  her  dying  thoughts 
were — her  wishes?  Throughout  her  long  pain 
ful  illness  she  was  thinking  that  she  was  an 
obstacle  in  my  way,  a  weight  upon  me ;  that  if 
it  weren't  for  her,  I  should  get  on,  have  friends, 
a  position ;  that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for 
me  if  she  should  die ;  and  she  was  hoping  in 
her  poor  little  heart  that  she  wouldn't  get  well ! 
Oh,  I  know  it,  I  knew  it — and  you  see  me 
here  alive.  She  let  herself  die  for  my  sake — as 
if  I  could  care  for  anything  without  her.  That's 
what  brought  us  here,  to  France,  to  Bordeaux 
— her  illness.  The  doctors  said  she  must  pass 
the  spring  out  of  England,  away  from  the 
March  winds,  in  the  South ;  and  I  begged  and 
borrowed  money  enough  to  take  her.  And  we 
were  on  our  way  to  Arcachon  ;  but  when  we 
reached  Bordeaux  she  was  too  ill  to  continue 
the  journey,  and — she  died  here.' 

We  walked  on  for  some  distance  in  silence, 
then  he  added:  'That  was  four  years  ago. 


158  GREY    ROSES 

You  wonder  why  I  live  to  tell  you  of  it,  why  I 
haven't  cut  my  throat  I  don't  know  whether  it's 
cowardice  or  conscientious  scruples.  It  seems 
rather  inconsequent  to  say  that  I  believe  in  a 
God,  doesn't  it  ? — that  I  believe  one's  life  is  not 
one's  own  to  make  an  end  of  ?  Anyhow,  here 
I  am,  keeping  body  and  soul  together  as 
musician  to  a  brasserie-d-femmes.  I  can't  go 
back  to  England,  I  can't  leave  Bordeaux — she's 
buried  here.  I've  hunted  high  and  low  for 
work,  and  found  it  nowhere  save  in  the  brasserie- 
d-femmes.  With  that,  and  a  little  copying  now 
and  then,  I  manage  to  pay  my  way.' 
'  But  your  uncle  ? '  I  asked. 
'  Do  you  think  I  would  touch  a  penny  of  his 
money  ? '  Pair  retorted,  almost  fiercely.  '  It  was 
he  who  began  it.  My  wife  let  herself  die.  It 
was  virtual  suicide.  It  was  he  who  created  the 
situation  that  drove  her  to  it.' 

'  You  are  his  heir,  though,  aren't  you  ? ' 
'  No,  the  estates  are  not  entailed.' 
We  had  arrived  at  the  door  of  my  hotel. 
'  Well,  good-night  and  ban  voyage,'  he  said. 

'  You  needn't  wish  me  ban  voyage}  I  answered. 
'Of  course  I'm  not  leaving  Bordeaux  for  the 
present ' 


WHEN    I    AM    KING          159 

'Oh,  yes,  you  are.  You're  going  on  to 
Biarritz  to-morrow  morning,  as  you  intended.' 

And  herewith  began  a  long  and  most  painful 
struggle.  I  could  persuade  him  to  accept  no 
help  of  any  sort  from  me.  '  What  I  can't  do  for 
myself/  he  declared,  '  I'll  do  without.  My  dear 
fellow,  all  that  you  propose  is  contrary  to  the 
laws  of  Nature.  One  man  can't  keep  another — 
it's  an  impossible  relation.  And  I  won't  be  kept; 
I  won't  be  a  burden.  Besides,  to  tell  you  the 
truth,  I've  got  past  caring.  The  situation  you 
find  me  in  seems  terrible  to  you  ;  to  me  it's  no 
worse  than  another.  You  see,  I'm  hardened  ; 
I've  got  past  caring.' 

'  At  any  rate,'  I  insisted,  '  I  shan't  go  on  to 
Biarritz.  I'll  spend  my  holiday  here,  and  we 
can  see  each  other  every  day.  What  time  shall 
we  meet  to-morrow  ? ' 

'  No,  no,  I  can't  meet  you  again.  Don't  ask 
me  to ;  you  mean  it  kindly,  I  know,  but  you're 
mistaken.  It's  done  me  good  to  talk  it  all  out 
to  you,  but  I  can't  meet  you  again.  I've  got  no 
heart  for  friendship,  and — you  remind  me  too 
keenly  of  many  things.' 

'But  if  I  come  to  the  brasserie  to-morrow 
night?' 


i6o  GREY    ROSES 

'  Oh,  if  you  do  that,  you'll  oblige  me  to  throw 
up  my  employment  there,  and  hide  from  you. 
You  must  promise  not  to  come  again — you 
must  respect  my  wishes.' 

'  You're  cruel,  you  know.' 

'Perhaps,  perhaps.  But  I  think  I'm  only 
reasonable.  Anyhow,  good-bye.' 

He  shook  my  hand  hurriedly,  and  moved  off. 
What  could  I  do  ?  I  stood  looking  after  him 
till  he  had  vanished  in  the  night,  with  a  miser 
able  baffled  recognition  of  my  helplessness  to 
help  him. 


A    RESPONSIBILITY 

IT  has  been  an  episode  like  a  German  sentence, 
with  its  predicate  at  the  end.  Trifling  incidents 
occurred  at  haphazard,  as  it  seemed,  and  I 
never  guessed  they  were  by  way  of  making 
sense.  Then,  this  morning,  somewhat  of  the 
suddenest,  came  the  verb  and  the  full  stop. 

Yesterday  I  should  have  said  there  was 
nothing  to  tell;  to-day  there  is  too  much. 
The  announcement  of  his  death  has  caused  me 
to  review  our  relations,  with  the  result  of  dis 
covering  my  own  part  to  have  been  that  of  an 
accessory  before  the  fact  I  did  not  kill  him 
(though,  .even  there,  I'm  not  sure  I  didn't  lend 
a  hand),  but  I  might  have  saved  his  life.  It  is 
certain  that  he  made  me  signals  of  distress — 
faint,  shy,  tentative,  but  unmistakable — and 
that  I  pretended  not  to  understand  :  just  barely 
dipped  my  colours,  and  kept  my  course.  Oh, 

if  I  had  dreamed  that  his  distress  was  extreme 
L 


162  GREY    ROSES 

— that  he  was  on  the  point  of  foundering  and 
going  down  !  However,  that  doesn't  exonerate 
me :  I  ought  to  have  turned  aside  to  find  out 
It  was  a  case  of  criminal  negligence.  That  he, 
poor  man,  probably  never  blamed  me,  only  adds 
to  the  burden  on  my  conscience.  He  had  got 
past  blaming  people,  I  dare  say,  and  doubtless 
merely  lumped  me  with  the  rest — with  the 
sum-total  of  things  that  made  life  unsupport- 
able.  Yet,  for  a  moment,  when  we  first  met, 
his  face  showed  a  distinct  glimmering  of  hope ; 
so  perhaps  there  was  a  distinct  disappointment 
He  must  have  had  so  many  disappointments, 
before  it  came  to — what  it  came  to ;  but  it 
wouldn't  have  come  to  that  if  he  had  got 
hardened  to  them.  Possibly  they  had  lost 
their  outlines,  and  merged  into  one  dull  general 
disappointment  that  was  too  hard  to  bear.  I 
wonder  whether  the  Priest  and  the  Levite  were 
smitten  with  remorse  after  they  had  passed 
on.  Unfortunately,  in  this  instance,  no  good 
Samaritan  followed. 

The  bottom  of  our  long  table  d'hote  was  held 
by  a  Frenchman,  a  Normand,  a  giant,  but  a 
pallid  and  rather  flabby  giant,  whose  name,  if 
he  had  another  than  Monsieur,  I  never  heard. 


A    RESPONSIBILITY       163 

He  professed  to  be  a  painter,  used  to  sketch 
birds  and  profiles  on  the  back  of  his  menu-card 
between  the  courses,  wore  shamelessly  the 
multi-coloured  rosette  of  a  foreign  order  in  his 
buttonhole,  and  talked  with  a  good  deal  of 
physiognomy.  I  had  the  corner  seat  at  his 
right,  and  was  flanked  in  turn  by  Miss  Etta  J. 
Hicks,  a  bouncing  young  person  from  Chicago, 
beyond  whom,  like  rabbits  in  a  company  of 
foxes,  cowered  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jordan  P.  Hicks, 
two  broken-spirited  American  parents.  At 
Monsieur's  left,  and  facing  me,  sat  Colonel 
Escott,  very  red  and  cheerful ;  then  a  young 
man  who  called  the  Colonel  Cornel,  and  came 
from  Dublin,  proclaiming  himself  a  barr'ster, 
and  giving  his  name  as  Flarty,  though  on  his 
card  it  was  written  Flaherty ;  and  then  Sir 
Richard  Maistre.  After  him,  a  diminishing 
perspective  of  busy  diners — for  purposes  of 
conversation,  so  far  as  we  were  concerned, 
inhabitants  of  the  Fourth  Dimension. 

Of  our  immediate  constellation,  Sir  Richard 
Maistre  was  the  only  member  on  whom  the  eye 
was  tempted  to  linger.  The  others  were  obvious 
— simple  equations,  soluble  '  in  the  head.'  But 
he  called  for  slate  and  pencil,  offered  materials 


164  GREY    ROSES 

for  doubt  and  speculation,  though  it  would  not 
have  been  easy  to  tell  wherein  they  lay.  What 
displayed  itself  to  a  cursory  inspection  was 
quite  unremarkable :  simply  a  decent-looking 
young  Englishman,  of  medium  stature,  with 
square-cut  plain  features,  reddish-brown  hair, 
grey  eyes,  and  clothes  and  manners  of  the 
usual  pattern.  Yet,  showing  through  this 
ordinary  surface,  there  was  something  cryptic. 
For  me,  at  any  rate,  it  required  a  constant 
effort  not  to  stare  at  him.  I  felt  it  from  the 
beginning,  and  I  felt  it  to  the  end :  a  teasing 
curiosity,  a  sort  of  magnetism  that  drew  my 
eyes  in  his  direction.  I  was  always  on  my 
guard  to  resist  it,  and  that  was  really  the 
inception  of  my  neglect  of  him.  From  I  don't 
know  what  stupid  motive  of  pride,  I  was 
anxious  that  he  shouldn't  discern  the  interest 
he  had  excited  in  me ;  so  I  paid  less  ostensible 
attention  to  him  than  to  the  others,  who  excited 
none  at  all.  I  tried  to  appear  unconscious  of 
him  as  a  detached  personality,  to  treat  him  as 
merely  a  part  of  the  group  as  a  whole.  Then 
I  improved  such  occasions  as  presented  them 
selves  to  steal  glances  at  him,  study  him  d  la 
dtrobee — groping  after  the  quality,  whatever  it 


A    RESPONSIBILITY        165 

was,  that  made  him  a  puzzle — seeking  to  for 
mulate,  to  classify  him. 

Already,  at  the  end  of  my  first  dinner,  he 
had  singled  himself  out  and  left  an  impression. 
I  went  into  the  smoking-room,  and  began  to 
wonder,  over  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  cigarette, 
who  he  was.  I  had  not  heard  his  voice ;  he 
hadn't  talked  much,  and  his  few  observations 
had  been  murmured  into  the  ears  of  his  next 
neighbours.  All  the  same,  he  had  left  an  im 
pression,  and  I  found  myself  wondering  who 
he  was,  the  young  man  with  the  square-cut 
features  and  the  reddish-brown  hair.  I  have 
said  that  his  features  were  square-cut  and 
plain,  but  they  were  small  and  carefully 
finished,  and  as  far  as  possible  from  being 
common.  And  his  grey  eyes,  though  not  con 
spicuous  for  size  or  beauty,  had  a  character,  an 
expression.  They  said  something,  something 
I  couldn't  perfectly  translate,  something  shrewd, 
humorous,  even  perhaps  a  little  caustic,  and 
yet  sad ;  not  violently,  not  rebelliously  sad  (I 
should  never  have  dreamed  that  it  was  a  sad 
ness  which  would  drive  him  to  desperate  re 
medies),  but  rather  resignedly,  submissively  sad, 
as  if  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  put  the  best 


166  GREY    ROSES 

face  on  a  sorry  business.  This  was  carried  out 
by  a  certain  abruptness,  a  slight  lack  of  suavity, 
in  his  movements,  in  his  manner  of  turning  his 
head,  of  using  his  hands.  It  hinted  a  degree 
of  determination  which,  in  the  circumstances, 
seemed  superfluous.  He  had  unfolded  his 
napkin  and  attacked  his  dinner  with  an  air  of 
resolution,  like  a  man  with  a  task  before  him, 
who  mutters,  '  Well,  it's  got  to  be  done,  and 
I'll  do  it.'  At  a  hazard,  he  was  two-  or  three- 
and-thirty,  but  below  his  neck  he  looked  older. 
He  was  dressed  like  everybody,  but  his  costume 
had,  somehow,  an  effect  of  soberness  beyond 
his  years.  It  was  decidedly  not  smart,  and 
smartness  was  the  dominant  note  at  the  Hdtel 
d'Angleterre. 

I  was  still  more  or  less  vaguely  ruminating 
him,  in  a  corner  of  the  smoking-room,  on  that 
first  evening,  when  I  became  aware  that  he  was 
standing  near  me.  As  I  looked  up,  our  eyes 
met,  and  for  the  fraction  of  a  second  fixed  each 
other.  It  was  barely  the  fraction  of  a  second, 
but  it  was  time  enough  for  the  transmission  of 
a  message.  I  knew  as  certainly  as  if  he  had 
said  so  that  he  wanted  to  speak,  to  break  the 
ice,  to  scrape  an  acquaintance ;  I  knew  that  he 


A    RESPONSIBILITY       167 

had  approached  me  and  was  loitering  in  my 
neighbourhood  for  that  specific  purpose.  I 
don't  know,  I  have  studied  the  psychology  of 
the  moment  in  vain  to  understand,  why  I  felt 
a  perverse  impulse  to  put  him  off.  I  was  in 
terested  in  him,  I  was  curious  about  him ;  and 
there  he  stood,  testifying  that  the  interest  was 
reciprocal,  ready  to  make  the  advances,  only 
waiting  for  a  glance  or  a  motion  of  encourage 
ment  ;  and  I  deliberately  secluded  myself  be 
hind  my  coffee-cup  and  my  cigarette  smoke. 
I  suppose  it  was  the  working  of  some  obscure 
mannish  vanity — of  what  in  a  woman  would 
have  defined  itself  as  coyness  and  coquetry. 
If  he  wanted  to  speak — well,  let  him  speak  ;  I 
wouldn't  help  him.  I  could  realise  the  pro 
cesses  of  his  mind  even  more  clearly  than  those 
of  my  own — his  desire,  his  hesitancy.  He  was 
too  timid  to  leap  the  barriers  ;  I  must  open  a 
gate  for  him.  He  hovered  near  me  for  a 
minute  longer,  and  then  drifted  away.  I  felt 
his  disappointment,  his  spiritual  shrug  of  the 
shoulders ;  and  I  perceived  rather  suddenly 
that  I  was  disappointed  myself.  I  must  have 
been  hoping  all  along  that  he  would  speak 
quand  meme,  and  now  I  was  moved  to  run  after 


168  GREY    ROSES 

him,  to  call  him  back.  That,  however,  would 
imply  a  consciousness  of  guilt,  an  admission 
that  my  attitude  had  been  intentional ;  so  I 
kept  my  seat,  making  a  mental  rendezvous 
with  him  for  the  morrow. 

Between  my  Irish  vis-d-vis  Flaherty  and 
myself  there  existed  no  such  strain.  He  pre 
sently  sauntered  up  to  me,  and  dropped  into 
conversation  as  easily  as  if  we  had  been  old 
friends. 

'  Well,  and  are  you  here  for  your  health  or 
your  entertainment  ? '  he  began.  '  But  I  don't 
need  to  ask  that  of  a  man  who's  drinking  black 
coffee  and  smoking  tobacco  at  this  hour  of  the 
night.  I'm  the  only  invalid  at  our  end  of  the 
table,  and  I'm  no  better  than  an  amateur 
meself.  It's  a  barrister's  throat  I  have — I 
caught  it  waiting  for  briefs  in  me  chambers  at 
Doblin.' 

We  chatted  together  for  a  half-hour  or  so, 
and  before  we  parted  he  had  given  me  a  good 
deal  of  general  information — about  the  town, 
the  natives,  the  visitors,  the  sands,  the  golf- 
links,  the  hunting,  and,  with  the  rest,  about 
our  neighbours  at  table. 

'  Did  ye  notice  the  pink-faced  bald  little  man 


A    RESPONSIBILITY       169 

at  me  right?  That's  Cornel  Escott,  C.B.,  re 
tired.  He  takes  a  sea-bath  every  morning,  to 
live  up  to  the  letters ;  and  faith,  it's  an  act  of 
heroism,  no  less,  in  weather  the  like  of  this. 
Three  weeks  have  I  been  here,  and  but  wan 
day  of  sunshine,  and  the  mercury  never  above 
fifty.  The  other  fellow,  him  at  me  left,  is  what 
you'd  be  slow  to  suspect  by  the  look  of  him, 
I'll  go  bail ;  and  that's  a  bar'net,  Sir  Richard 
Maistre,  with  a  place  in  Hampshire,  and  ten 
thousand  a  year  if  he's  a  penny.  The  young 
lady  beside  yourself  rejoices  in  the  euphonious 
name  of  Hicks,  and  trains  her  Popper  and 
Mommer  behind  her  like  slaves  in  a  Roman 
triumph.  They're  Americans,  if  you  must  have 
the  truth,  though  I  oughtn't  to  tell  it  on  them, 
for  I'm  an  Irishman  myself,  and  it's  not  for  the 
pot  to  be  bearing  tales  of  the  kettle.  How 
ever,  their  tongues  bewray  them;  so  I've 
violated  no  confidence.' 

The  knowledge  that  my  young  man  was  a 
baronet  with  a  place  in  Hampshire  somewhat 
disenchanted  me.  A  baronet  with  a  place  in 
Hampshire  left  too  little  to  the  imagination. 
The  description  seemed  to  curtail  his  poten 
tialities,  to  prescribe  his  orbit,  to  connote  turnip- 


i;o  GREY    ROSES 

fields,  house-parties,  and  a  whole  system  of 
British  commonplace.  Yet,  when,  the  next  day 
at  luncheon,  I  again  had  him  before  me  in  the 
flesh,  my  interest  revived.  Its  lapse  had  been 
due  to  an  association  of  ideas  which  I  now 
recognised  as  unscientific.  A  baronet  with 
twenty  places  in  Hampshire  would  remain  at 
the  end  of  them  all  a  human  being ;  and  no 
human  being  could  be  finished  off  in  a  formula 
of  half  a  dozen  words.  Sir  Richard  Maistre, 
anyhow,  couldn't  be.  He  was  enigmatic,  and 
his  effect  upon  me  was  enigmatic  too.  Why 
did  I  feel  that  tantalising  inclination  to  stare  at 
him,  coupled  with  that  reluctance  frankly  to 
engage  in  talk  with  him  ?  Why  did  he  attack 
his  luncheon  with  that  appearance  of  grim 
resolution  ?  For  a  minute,  after  he  had  taken 
his  seat,  he  eyed  his  knife,  fork,  and  napkin,  as 
a  labourer  might  a  load  that  he  had  to  lift, 
measuring  the  difficulties  he  must  cope  with ; 
then  he  gave  his  head  a  resolute  nod,  and  set 
to  work.  To-day,  as  yesterday,  he  said  very 
little,  murmured  an  occasional  remark  into  the 
ear  of  Flaherty,  accompanying  it  usually  with 
a  sudden  short  smile ;  but  he  listened  to  every 
thing,  and  did  so  with  apparent  appreciation. 


A    RESPONSIBILITY        171 

Our  proceedings  were  opened  by  Miss  Hicks, 
who  asked  Colonel  Escott,  '  Well,  Colonel, 
have  you  had  your  bath  this  morning  ? ' 

The  Colonel  chuckled,  and  answered,  '  Oh, 
yes — yes,  yes — couldn't  forego  my  bath,  you 
know — couldn't  possibly  forego  my  bath.' 

'And  what  was  the  temperature  of  the 
water  ? '  she  continued. 

'  Fifty-two — fifty-two — three  degrees  warmer 
than  the  air — three  degrees,'  responded  the 
Colonel,  still  chuckling,  as  if  the  whole  affair 
had  been  extremely  funny. 

'And  you,  Mr.  Flaherty,  I  suppose  you've 
been  to  Bayonne  ? ' 

'  No,  I've  broken  me  habit,  and  not  left  the 
hotel.' 

Subsequent  experience  taught  me  that  these 
were  conventional  modes  by  which  the  conver 
sation  was  launched  every  day,  like  the  pre 
liminary  moves  in  chess.  We  had  another 
ritual  for  dinner :  Miss  Hicks  then  inquired  if 
the  colonel  had  taken  his  ride,  and  Flaherty 
played  his  game  of  golf.  The  next  inevitable 
step  was  common  to  both  meals.  Colonel 
Escott  would  pour  himself  a  glass  of  the  vin 
ordinaire^  a  jug  of  which  was  set  by  every 


172  GREY    ROSES 

plate,  and  holding  it  up  to  the  light,  exclaim 
with  simulated  gusto,  '  Ah !  Fine  old  wine ! 
Remarkably  full  rich  flavour  ! '  At  this  pleas 
antry  we  would  all  gently  laugh ;  and  the  word 
was  free. 

Sir  Richard,  as  I  have  said,  appeared  to  be 
an  attentive  and  appreciative  listener,  not 
above  smiling  at  our  mildest  sallies;  but, 
watching  him  out  of  the  corner  of  an  eye,  I 
noticed  that  my  own  observations  seemed  to 
strike  him  with  peculiar  force — which  led  me 
to  talk  at  him.  Why  not  to  him,  with  him  ? 
The  interest  was  reciprocal ;  he  would  have 
liked  a  dialogue ;  he  would  have  welcomed  a 
chance  to  commence  one ;  and  I  could  at  any 
instant  have  given  him  such  a  chance.  I  talked 
at  him,  it  is  true ;  but  I  talked  with  Flaherty  or 
Miss  Hicks,  or  to  the  company  at  large.  Of 
his  separate  identity  he  had  no  reason  to 
believe  me  conscious.  From  a  mixture  of 
motives,  in  which  I'm  not  sure  that  a  certain 
heathenish  enjoyment  of  his  embarrassment 
didn't  count  for  something,  I  was  determined 
that  if  he  wanted  to  know  me  he  must  come  the 
whole  distance ;  I  wouldn't  meet  him  half-way. 
Of  course  I  had  no  idea  that  it  could  be  a 


A   RESPONSIBILITY        173 

matter  of  the  faintest  real  importance  to  the 
man.  I  judged  his  feelings  by  my  own  ;  and 
though  I  was  interested  in  him,  I  shall  have 
conveyed  an  altogether  exaggerated  notion  of 
my  interest  if  you  fancy  it  kept  me  awake  at 
night.  How  was  I  to  guess  that  his  case  was 
more  serious — that  he  was  not  simply  desirous 
of  a  little  amusing  talk,  but  starving,  starving 
for  a  little  human  sympathy,  a  little  brotherly 
love  and  comradeship  ? — that  he  was  in  an 
abormally  sensitive  condition  of  mind,  where 
mere  negative  unresponsiveness  could  hurt  him 
like  a  slight  or  a  rebuff? 

In  the  course  of  the  week  I  ran  over  to  Pau, 
to  pass  a  day  with  the  Winchfields,  who  had  a 
villa  there.  When  I  came  back  I  brought  with 
me  all  that  they  (who  knew  everybody)  could 
tell  about  Sir  Richard  Maistre.  He  was  in 
telligent  and  amiable,  but  the  shyest  of  shy 
men.  He  avoided  general  society,  frightened 
away  perhaps  by  the  British  Mamma,  and 
spent  a  good  part  of  each  year  abroad,  wan 
dering  rather  listlessly  from  town  to  town. 
Though  young  and  rich,  he  was  neither  fast 
nor  ambitious  :  the  Members'  entrance  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  the  stage-doors  of  the 


1/4  GREY   ROSES 

music  halls,  were  equally  without  glamour  for 
him  ;  and  if  he  was  a  Justice  of  the  Peace  and 
a  Deputy  Lieutenant,  he  had  become  so 
through  the  tacit  operation  of  his  stake  in  the 
country.  He  had  chambers  in  St.  James's 
Street,  was  a  member  of  the  Travellers  Club, 
and  played  the  violin — for  an  amateur  rather 
well.  His  brother,  Mortimer  Maistre,  was  in 
diplomacy — at  Rio  Janeiro  or  somewhere.  His 
sister  had  married  an  Australian,  and  lived  in 
Melbourne. 

At  the  H6tel  d'Angleterre  I  found  his  shy 
ness  was  mistaken  for  indifference.  He  was 
civil  to  everybody,  but  intimate  with  none. 
He  attached  himself  to  no  party,  paired  off 
with  no  individuals.  He  sought  nobody.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  persons  who  went  out  of 
their  way  to  seek  him,  came  back,  as  they  felt, 
repulsed.  He  had  been  polite,  but  languid. 
These,  however,  were  not  the  sort  of  persons 
he  would  be  likely  to  care  for.  There  prevailed 
a  general  conception  of  him  as  cold,  unsociable. 
He  certainly  walked  about  a  good  deal  alone 
— you  met  him  on  the  sands,  on  the  cliffs,  in  the 
stiff  little  streets,  rambling  aimlessly,  seldom 
with  a  companion.  But  to  me  it  was  patent 


A    RESPONSIBILITY     -  175 

that  he  played  the  solitary  from  necessity,  not 
from  choice — from  the  necessity  of  his  tempera 
ment.  A  companion  was  precisely  that  which 
above  all  things  his  heart  coveted ;  only  he 
didn't  know  how  to  set  about  annexing  one. 
If  he  sought  nobody,  it  was  because  he  didn't 
know  how.  This  was  a  part  of  what  his  eyes 
said  ;  they  bespoke  his  desire,  his  perplexity, 
his  lack  of  nerve.  Of  the  people  who  put 
themselves  out  to  seek  him,  there  was  Miss 
Hicks  ;  there  were  a  family  from  Leeds,  named 
Bunn,  a  father,  mother,  son,  and  two  redoubt 
able  daughters,  who  drank  champagne  with 
every  meal,  dressed  in  the  height  of  fashion, 
said  their  say  at  the  tops  of  their  voices,  and 
were  understood  to  be  auctioneers  ;  a  family 
from  Bayswater  named  Krausskopf.  I  was 
among  those  whom  he  had  marked  as  men  he 
would  like  to  fraternise  with.  As  often  as  our 
paths  crossed,  his  eyes  told  me  that  he  longed 
to  stop  and  speak,  and  continue  the  promenade 
abreast  I  was  under  the  control  of  a  demon  of 
mischief;  I  took  a  malicious  pleasure  in  eluding 
and  baffling  him — in  passing  on  with  a  nod.  It 
had  become  a  kind  of  game ;  I  was  curious  to  see 
•whether  he  would  ever  develop  sufficient  hardi- 


176  GREY    ROSES 

hood  to  take  the  bull  by  the  horns.  After  all, 
from  a  conventional  point  of  view,  my  conduct 
was  quite  justifiable.  I  always  meant  to  do 
better  by  him  next  time,  and  then  I  always 
deferred  it  to  the  next.  But,  from  a  conven 
tional  point  of  view,  my  conduct  was  quite 
unassailable.  I  said  this  to  myself  when  I  had 
momentary  qualms  of  conscience.  Now,  rather 
late  in  the  day,  it  strikes  me  that  the  con 
ventional  point  of  view  should  have  been 
re-adjusted  to  the  special  case.  I  should  have 
allowed  for  his  personal  equation. 

My  cousin  Wilford  came  to  Biarritz  about 
this  time,  stopping  for  a  week,  on  his  way  home 
from  a  tour  in  Spain.  I  couldn't  find  a  room 
for  him  at  the  Hotel  d'Angleterre,  so  he  put  up 
at  a  rival  hostelry  over  the  way ;  but  he  dined 
with  me  on  the  evening  of  his  arrival,  a  place 
being  made  for  him  between  mine  and  Mon 
sieur's.  He  hadn't  been  at  the  table  five 
minutes  before  the  rumour  went  abroad  who  he 
was — somebody  had  recognised  him.  Then 
those  who  were  within  reach  of  his  voice 
listened  with  all  their  ears — Colonel  Escott, 
Flaherty,  Maistre,  and  Miss  Hicks,  of  course, 
who  even  called  him  by  name :  '  Oh,  Mr 


A    RESPONSIBILITY        177 

Wilford,'  'Now,  Mr  Wilford,'  &c.  After 
dinner,  in  the  smoking-room,  a  cluster  of  people 
hung  round  us ;  men  with  whom  I  had  no 
acquaintance  came  merrily  up  and  asked  to  be 
introduced.  Colonel  Escott  and  Flaherty 
joined  us.  At  the  outskirts  of  the  group  I 
beheld  Sir  Richard  Maistre.  His  eyes  (with 
out  his  realising  it  perhaps)  begged  me  to 
invite  him,  to  present  him ;  and  I  affected  not 
to  understand  !  This  is  one  of  the  little  things 
I  find  hardest  to  forgive  myself.  My  whole 
behaviour  towards  the  young  man  is  now  a 
subject  of  self-reproach ;  if  it  had  been  differ 
ent,  who  knows  that  the  tragedy  of  yesterday 
would  ever  have  happened  ?  If  I  had  answered 
his  timid  overtures,  walked  with  him,  talked 
with  him,  cultivated  his  friendship,  given  him 
mine,  established  a  kindly  human  relation  with 
him,  I  can't  help  feeling  that  he  might  not  have 
got  to  such  a  desperate  pass,  that  I  might  have 
cheered  him,  helped  him,  saved  him.  I  feel  it 
especially  when  I  think  of  Wilford.  His  eyes 
attested  so  much ;  he  would  have  enjoyed 
meeting  him  so  keenly.  No  doubt  he  was 
already  fond  of  the  man,  had  loved  him  through 

his  books,  like  so  many  others.     If  I  had  intro- 
M 


178  GREY    ROSES 

duced  him  ?  If  we  had  taken  him  with  us  the 
next  morning  on  our  excursion  to  Cambo  ? 
Included  him  occasionally  in  our  smokes  and 
parleys  ? 

Wilford  left  for  England  without  dining 
again  at  the  Hotel  d'Angleterre.  We  were 
busy  'doing'  the  country,  and  never  chanced 
to  be  at  Biarritz  at  the  dinner  hour.  During 
that  week  I  scarcely  saw  Sir  Richard  Maistre. 

Another  little  circumstance  that  rankles 
especially  now  would  have  been  ridiculous 
except  for  the  way  things  have  ended.  It 
isn't  easy  to  tell — it  was  so  petty  and  I  am 
so  ashamed.  Colonel  Escott  had  been  abus 
ing  London,  describing  it  as  the  least  beautiful 
of  the  capitals  of  Europe,  comparing  it  un 
favourably  to  Paris,  Vienna,  and  St.  Peters 
burg.  I  took  up  the  cudgels  in  its  defence, 
mentioned  its  atmosphere,  its  tone;  Paris 
Vienna,  St.  Petersburg  were  lyric,  London 
was  epic  ;  and  so  forth  and  so  forth.  Then, 
shifting  from  the  aesthetic  to  the  utilitarian, 
I  argued  that  of  all  great  towns  it  was  the 
healthiest,  its  death-rate  was  lowest  Sir 
Richard  Maistre  had  followed  my  dissertation 
attentively,  and  with  a  countenance  that 


A    RESPONSIBILITY        179 

signified  approval ;  and  when,  with  my  re 
ference  to  the  death-rate,  I  paused,  he  suddenly 
burned  his  ships.  He  looked  me  full  in 
the  eye,  and  said,  'Thirty-seven,  I  believe?' 
His  heightened  colour,  a  nervous  movement 
of  the  lip,  betrayed  the  effort  it  had  cost 
him  ;  but  at  last  he  had  done  it — screwed  his 
courage  to  the  sticking-place,  and  spoken. 
And  I — I  can  never  forget  it — I  grow  hot 
when  I  think  of  it — but  I  was  possessed  by 
a  devil.  His  eyes  hung  on  my  face,  await 
ing  my  response,  pleading  for  a  cue.  'Go, 
on,'  they  urged.  '  I  have  taken  the  first,  the 
difficult  step — make  the  next  smoother  for 
me.'  And  I — I  answered  lackadaisically 
with  just  a  casual  glance  at  him,  '  I  don't 
know  the  figures,'  and  absorbed  myself  in  my 
viands. 

Two  or  three  days  later  his  place  was  filled 
by  a  stranger,  and  Flaherty  told  me  that  he 
had  left  for  the  Riviera. 

All  this  happened  last  March  at  Biarritz.  I 
never  saw  him  again  till  three  weeks  ago.  It 
was  one  of  those  frightfully  hot  afternoons  in 
July ;  I  had  come  out  of  my  club,  and  was 
walking  up  St  James's  Street,  towards  Picca- 


i8o  GREY    ROSES 

dilly ;  he  was  moving  in  an  opposite  sense ; 
and  thus  we  approached  each  other.  He 
didn't  see  me,  however,  till  we  had  drawn 
rather  near  to  a  conjunction :  then  he  gave 
a  little  start  of  recognition,  his  eyes  brightened, 
his  pace  slackened,  his  right  hand  prepared 
to  advance  itself — and  I  bowed  slightly,  and 
pursued  my  way  i  Don't  ask  why  I  did  it 
It  is  enough  to  confess  it  without  having  to 
explain  it.  I  glanced  backwards,  by  and  by, 
over  my  shoulder.  He  was  standing  where 
I  had  met  him,  half  turned  round,  and  looking 
after  me.  But  when  he  saw  that  I  was  observ 
ing  him,  he  hastily  shifted  about,  and  continued 
his  descent  of  the  street 

That  was  only  three  weeks  ago.  Only  three 
weeks  ago  I  still  had  it  in  my  power  to  act  I 
am  sure — I  don't  know  why  I  am  sure,  but  I  am 
sure — that  I  could  have  deterred  him.  For  all 
that  one  can  gather  from  the  brief  note  he  left 
behind,  it  seems  he  had  no  special,  definite 
motive ;  he  had  met  with  no  losses,  got  into  no 
scrape ;  he  was  simply  tired  and  sick  of  life 
and  of  himself.  '  I  have  no  friends,'  he  wrote. 
1  Nobody  will  care.  People  don't  like  me  ; 
people  avoid  me.  I  have  wondered  why ;  I  have 


A    RESPONSIBILITY        181 

tried  to  watch  myself  and  discover;  I  have 
tried  to  be  decent.  I  suppose  it  must  be  that 
I  emit  a  repellent  fluid  ;  I  suppose  I  am  a 
"bad  sort."'  He  had  a  morbid  notion  that 
people  didn't  like  him,  that  people  avoided 
him !  Oh,  to  be  sure,  there  were  the  Bunns 
and  the  Krausskopfs  and  their  ilk,  plentiful 
enough :  but  he  understood  what  it  was  that 
attracted  them.  Other  people,  the  people  he 
could  have  liked,  kept  their  distance — were 
civil,  indeed,  but  reserved.  He  wanted  bread, 
and  they  gave  him  a  stone.  It  never  struck 
him,  I  suppose,  that  they  attributed  the  reserve 
to  him.  But  I — I  knew  that  his  reserve  was 
only  an  effect  of  his  shyness ;  I  knew  that  he 
wanted  bread  :  and  that  knowledge  constituted 
my  moral  responsibility.  I  didn't  know  that 
his  need  was  extreme  ;  but  I  have  tried  in  vain 
to  absolve  myself  with  the  reflection.  I  ought 
to  have  made  inquiries.  When  I  think  of  that 
afternoon  in  St.  James's  Street — only  three 
weeks  ago — I  feel  like  an  assassin.  The  vision 
of  him,  as  he  stopped  and  looked  after  me — 
I  can't  banish  it.  Why  didn't  some  good 
spirit  move  me  to  turn  back  and  overtake 
him? 


182  GREY    ROSES 

It  is  so  hard  for  the  mind  to  reconcile  itself 
to  the  irretrievable.  I  can't  shake  off  a  sense 
that  there  is  something  to  be  done.  I  can't 
realise  that  it  is  too  late. 


CASTLES   NEAR  SPAIN 


I. 


THAT  he  should  not  have  guessed  it  from  the 
beginning  seems  odd,  if  you  like,  until  one 
stops  to  consider  the  matter  twice ;  then,  I 
think,  one  sees  that  after  all  there  was  no 
shadow  of  a  reason  why  he  should  have  done 
so, — one  sees,  indeed,  that  even  had  a  suspicion 
of  the  truth  at  any  time  crossed  his  mind,  he 
would  have  had  the  best  of  reasons  for  scouting 
it  as  nonsense.  It  is  obvious  to  us  from  the  first 
word,  because  we  know  instinctively  that  other 
wise  there  would  be  no  story ;  it  is  that  which 
knits  a  mere  sequence  of  incidents  into  a  co 
herent,  communicable  whole.  But,  to  his  per 
ceptions,  the  thing  never  presented  itself  as  a 
story  at  all.  It  wasn't  an  anecdote  which  some 
body  had  buttonholed  him  to  tell ;  it  was  an 
adventure  in  which  he  found  himself  launched, 
an  experience  to  be  enjoyed  bit  by  bit,  as  it 
befell,  but  in  no  wise  suggestive  of  any  single 


184  GREY    ROSES 

specific  climax.  What  earthly  hint  had  he 
received  from  which  to  infer  the  identity  of  the 
two  women?  On  the  contrary,  weren't  the 
actions  of  the  one  totally  inconsistent  with 
what  everybody  assured  him  was  the  manner 
of  life — with  what  the  necessities  of  the  case 
led  him  to  believe  would  be  the  condition  of 
spirit — of  the  other?  If  the  tale  were  to  be 
published,  the  fun  would  lie,  not  in  attempting 
to  mystify  the  reader,  but  in  watching  with  him 
the  mystification  of  the  hero, — in  showing  how 
he  played  at  hoodman-blind  with  his  destiny, 
and  how  surprised  he  was,  when,  the  bandage 
stripped  from  his  eyes,  he  saw  whom  he  had 
caught 


II. 


On  that  first  morning, — the  first  after  his 
arrival  at  Saint-Graal,  and  the  first,  also,  of  the 
many  on  which  they  encountered  each  other 
in  the  forest, — he  was  bent  upon  a  sentimental 
pilgrimage  to  Granjolaye.  He  was  partly  obey 
ing,  partly  seeking,  an  emotion.  His  mind, 
inevitably,  was  full  of  old  memories;  the 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN    185 

melancholy  by  which  they  were  attended  he 
found  distinctly  pleasant,  and  was  inclined  to 
nurse.  To  revisit  the  scene  of  their  boy-and- 
girl  romance,  would  itself  be  romantic.  In  a 
little  while  he  would  come  to  the  park  gates, 
and  could  look  up  the  long,  straight  avenue  to 
the  chateau, — there  where,  when  they  were 
children,  twenty  years  ago,  he  and  she  had 
played  so  earnestly  at  being  married,  burning 
for  each  other  with  one  of  those  strange,  inarti 
culate  passions  that  almost  every  childhood 
knows ;  and  where  now,  worse  than  widowed, 
she  withheld  herself,  in  silent,  mysterious,  tragi 
cal  seclusion. 

And  then  he  heard  the  rhythm  of  a  horse's 
hoofs ;  and  looking  forward,  down  the  green 
pathway,  between  the  two  walls  of  forest,  he 
saw  a  lady  cantering  towards  him. 

In  an  instant  she  had  passed  ;  and  it  took  a 
little  while  for  the  blur  of  black  and  white  that 
she  had  flashed  upon  his  retina  to  clear  into  an 
image — which  even  then,  from  under-exposure, 
was  obscure  and  piecemeal :  a  black  riding- 
habit,  of  some  flexile  stuff,  that  fluttered  in  a 
multitude  of  pretty  curves  and  folds ;  a  small 
black  hat,  a  toque,  set  upon  a  loosely-fastened 


i86  GREY    ROSES 

mass  of  black  hair ;  a  face  intensely  white — a 
softly-rounded  face,  but  intensely  white ;  soft 
full  lips,  singularly  scarlet ;  and  large  eyes, 
very  dark. 

It  was  not  much,  certainly,  but  it  persisted. 
The  impression,  defective  as  I  give  it,  had  been 
pleasing  ;  an  impression  of  warm  femininity,  of 
graceful  motion.  It  had  had  the  quality,  be 
sides,  of  the  unexpected  and  the  fugitive,  and 
the  advantage  of  a  sylvan  background.  Any 
how,  it  pursued  him.  He  went  on  to  his  jour 
ney's  end ;  stopped  before  the  great  gilded 
grille,  with  its  multiplicity  of  scrolls  and  flour 
ishes,  its  coronets  and  interlaced  initials  ;  gazed 
up  the  shadowy  aisle  of  plane-trees  to  the  bit 
of  castle  gleaming  in  the  sun  at  the  end  ;  re 
membered  the  child  H61ene,  and  how  he  and 
she  had  loved  each  other  there,  a  hundred  years 
ago ;  and  thought  of  the  exiled,  worse  than 
widowed  woman  immured  there  now :  but  it 
was  mere  remembering,  mere  thinking,  it  was 
mere  cerebration.  The  emotion  he  had  looked 
for  did  not  come.  An  essential  part  of  him 
was  elsewhere, — following  the  pale  lady  in  the 
black  riding-habit,  trying  to  get  a  clearer  vision 
of  her  face,  blaming  him  for  his  inattention 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN   187 

when  she  had  been  palpable  before  him,  won 
dering  who  she  was. 

'  If  she  should  prove  to  be  a  neighbour,  I 
shan't  bore  myself  so  dreadfully  down  here 
after  all,'  he  thought.  '  I  wonder  if  I  shall  meet 
her  again  as  I  go  home.'  She  would  very 
likely  be  returning  the  way  she  had  gone. 
But,  though  he  loitered,  he  did  not  meet  her 
again.  He  met  nobody.  It  was,  in  some 
measure,  the  attraction  of  that  lonely  forest 
lane,  that  one  almost  never  did  meet  anybody 
in  it 


III. 


At  Saint-Graal  Andr6  was  waiting  to  lunch 
with  him. 

'When  we  were  children,'  Paul  wrote  in  a 
letter  to  Mrs  Winchfield, '  Andre",  our  gardener's 
son,  and  I  were  as  intimate  as  brothers,  he 
being  the  only  companion  of  my  sex  and  age 
the  neighbourhood  afforded.  But  now,  after  a 
separation  of  twenty  years,  Andre1,  who  has 
become  our  cure,  insists  upon  treating  me  with 
distance.  He  won't  waive  the  fact  that  I  am 


i88  GREY    ROSES 

the  lord  of  the  manor,  and  calls  me  relentlessly 
Monsieur.  I've  done  everything  to  entice  him 
to  unbend,  but  his  backbone  is  of  granite. 
From  the  merriest  of  mischief-loving  youngsters, 
he  has  hardened  into  the  solemnest  of  square- 
toes,  with  such  a  long  upper-lip,  and  manners 
as  stiff  as  the  stuff  of  his  awful  best  cassock, 
which  he  always  buckles  on  prior  to  paying  me 
a  visit.  Whatever  is  a  poor  young  man  to  do? 
At  our  first  meeting,  after  my  arrival,  I  fell 
upon  his  neck,  and  thee-and-thou'd  him,  as  of 
old  time ;  he  repulsed  me  with  a  vous  italicised. 
At  last  I  demanded  reason.  "  Why  will  you 
treat  me  with  this  inexorable  respect  ?  What 
have  I  done  to  deserve  it  ?  What  can  I  do  to 
forfeit  it?"  //  devint  cramoisi  (in  the  tradi 
tional  phrase)  and  stared. — This  is  what  it  is  to 
come  back  to  the  home  of  your  infancy.' 

Andr6,  in  his  awful  best  cassock,  was  waiting 
on  the  terrace.  It  was  on  the  terrace  that  Paul 
had  ordered  luncheon  to  be  served.  The  ter 
race  at  Saint-Graal  is  a  very  jolly  place.  It 
stretches  the  whole  length  of  the  southern 
fagade  of  the  house,  and  is  generously  broad. 
It  is  paved  with  great  lozenge-shaped  slabs  of 
marble,  stained  in  delicate  pinks  and  greys 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN    189 

with  lichens ;  and  a  marble  balustrade  borders 
it,  overgrown,  the  columns  half  uprooted  and 
twisted  from  the  perpendicular,  by  an  aged 
wistaria-vine,  with  a  trunk  as  stout  as  a  tree's. 
Seated  there,  one  can  look  off  over  miles  of 
richly-timbered  country,  dotted  with  white- 
walled  villages,  and  traversed  by  the  Nive  and 
the  Adour,  to  the  wry  masses  of  the  Pyrenees, 
purple  curtains  hiding  Spain. 

Here,  under  an  awning,  the  table  was  set, 
gay  with  white  linen  and  glistening  glass  and 
silver,  a  centrepiece  of  flowers  and  jugs  of  red 
and  yellow  wine.  The  wistaria  was  in  blossom, 
a  world  of  colour  and  fragrance,  shaken  at  odd 
moments  by  the  swift  dartings  of  innumerable 
lizards.  The  sun  shone  hot  and  clear ;  the  still 
air,  as  you  touched  it,  felt  like  velvet. 

'  Oh,  what  a  heavenly  place,  what  a  heavenly 
day,'  cried  Paul ; '  it  only  needs  a  woman.'  And 
then,  meeting  Andre's  eye,  he  caught  himself 
up,  with  a  gesture  of  contrition.  '  I  beg  a 
thousand  pardons.  I  forgot  your  cloth.  If 
you,'  he  added,  '  would  only  forget  it  too,  what 
larks  we  might  have  together.  Allans^  a  table' 

And  they  sat  down. 

If  Paul  had  sincerely  wished  to  forfeit  Andrews 


190  GREY    ROSES 

respect,  he  could  scarcely  have  employed  more 
efficacious  means  to  do  so,  than  his  speech  and 
conduct  throughout  the  meal  that  followed. 
You  know  how  flippant,  how  'fly-away,'  he 
can  be  when  the  mood  seizes  him,  how  whole 
heartedly  he  can  play  the  fool.  To-day  he 
really  behaved  outrageously ;  and,  since  the 
priest  maintained  a  straight  countenance,  I 
think  the  wonder  is  that  he  didn't  excommuni 
cate  him. 

'  I  remember  you  were  a  teetotaller,  Andre", 
when  you  were  young,'  his  host  began,  pushing 
a  decanter  towards  him.  i 

'That,  monsieur,  was  because  my  mother 
wished  it,  and  my  father  was  a  drunkard,' 
Andr6  answered  bluntly.  'Since  my  father's 
death,  I  have  taken  wine  in  moderation.'  He 
filled  his  glass. 

'  I  remember  once  I  cooked  some  chestnuts 
over  a  spirit-stove,  and  you  refused  to  touch 
them,  on  the  ground  that  they  were  alcoholic.' 

'  That  would  have  been  from  a  confusion  of 
thought,'  the  cure"  explained,  with  never  a  smile. 
But  it  was  better  to  err  on  the  side  of  scrupu 
losity  than  on  that  of  self-indulgence.' 

'Ah,  that  depends.   That  depends  on  whether 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN   191 

the  pleasure  you  got  from  your  renunciation 
equalled  that  you  might  have  got  from  the 
chestnuts.' 

'  You're  preaching  pure  Paganism.' 

*Oh,  I'm  not  denying  I'm  a  Pagan — in  my 
amateurish  way.  Let  me  give  you  some  aspa 
ragus.  Do  you  think  a  man  can  be  saved  who 
smokes  cigarettes  between  the  courses  ? ' 

'Saved?'  questioned  Andre\  'What  have 
cigarettes  to  do  with  a  man's  salvation  ? ' 

'  It's  a  habit  I  learned  in  Russia.  I  feared  it 
might  relate  itself  in  some  way  to  the  Schism.' 
And  he  lit  a  cigarette.  'I'm  always  a  rigid 
Catholic  when  I'm  in  France.' 

'  And  when  you're  in  England  ? ' 

'  Oh,  one  goes  in  for  local  colour,  for  pictur- 
esqueness,  don't  you  know.  The  Church  of 
England's  charmingly  overgrown  with  ivy. 
And  besides,  they're  going  to  disestablish  it. 
One  must  make  the  most  of  it  while  it  lasts. 
Tell  me — why  can  you  never  get  decent  brioches 
except  in  Catholic  countries  ? ' 

'  Is  that  a  fact  ? ' 

'  I  swear  it.' 

'  It's  very  singular,'  said  Andre". 

'It's  only  one  of  the  many  odd  things  a 


192  GREY    ROSES 

fellow  learns    from    travel. — Hush!    Wait    a 
moment/ 

He  rose  hastily,  and  made  a  dash  with  his 
hand  at  the  tail  of  a  lizard,  that  was  hanging 
temptingly  out  from  a  bunch  of  wistaria  leaves. 
But  the  lizard  was  too  quick  for  him.  With  a 
whisk,  it  had  disappeared.  He  sank  back  into 
his  chair,  sighing.  *  It's  always  like  that. 
They'll  never  keep  still  long  enough  to  let 
me  catch  them.  What's  the  use  of  a  univer 
sity  education  and  a  cosmopolitan  culture,  if 
you  can't  catch  lizards?  Do  you  think  they 
have  eyes  in  the  backs  of  their  heads  ? ' 

Andr6  stared. 

'Oh,  I  see.  You  think  I'm  frivolous,'  Paul 
said  plaintively.  '  But  you  ought  to  have  seen 
me  an  hour  or  two  ago.' 

Andre's  eyes  asked, '  Why  ? ' 

'Oh.  I  was  plunged  in  all  the  most  appro 
priate  emotions — shedding  floods  of  tears  over 
my  lost  childhood  and  my  misspent  youth. 
Don't  you  like  to  have  a  good  cry  now  and 
then?  Oh,  I  don't  mean  literal  tears,  of 
course;  only  spiritual  ones.  For  the  letter 
killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life.  I  walked 
over  to  Granjolaye.' 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN    193 

Andr6  looked  surprise.  'To  Granjolaye? 
Have  you — were  you — ' 

He  hesitated,  but  Paul  understood.  *  Have 
you  heard  from  her?  Were  you  invited?' 
'  Oh,  dear,  no,'  he  answered.  '  No  such  luck. 
Not  to  the  Chateau,  only  to  the  gates — the 
East  Gate.'  (The  principal  entrance  to  the 
home  park  of  Granjolaye  is  the  South  Gate, 
which  opens  upon  the  Route  De"partementale.) 
'  I  stood  respectfully  outside,  and  looked 
through  the  grating  of  the  grille.  I  walked 
through  the  forest,  by  the  Sentier  des  Contre- 
bandiers.' 

1  Ah,'  said  Andre". 

'And  on  my  way  what  do  you  suppose  I 
met?' 

'  A — a  viper,'  responded  Andr6.  '  The  hot 
weather  is  bringing  them  out.  I  killed  two  in 
my  garden  yesterday.' 

'  Oh,  you  cruel  thing !  What  did  you  want 
to  kill  the  poor  young  creatures  for?  And 
then  to  boast  of  it ! — But  no,  not  a  viper.  A 
lady.' 

'A  lady?1 

'  Yes — a  real  lady ;   she  wore  gloves.     She 

was  riding.     I  hope  you  won't  think  I'm  ask- 
N 


194  GREY    ROSES 

ing  impertinent  questions,  but  I  wonder  if  you 
can  tell  me  who  she  is.' 

'  A  lady  riding  in  the  Sentier  des  Contre- 
bandiers  ? '  Andr6  repeated  incredulously. 

'She  looked  like  one.  Of  course  I  may 
have  been  deceived.  I  didn't  hear  her  speak. 
Do  you  think  she  was  a  cook  ? ' 

'  I  didn't  know  any  one  ever  rode  in  the 
Sentier  des  Contrebandiers.' 

*  Oh,  for  that,  I  give  you  my  word  of  honour. 
A  lady — or  say  a  female — in  a  black  riding- 
habit  ;  dark  hair  and  eyes ;  very  pale,  with  red 
lips  and  things.  Oh,  I'm  not  trying  to  impose 
upon  you.  It  was  about  half  a  mile  this  side 
of  where  the  path  skirts  the  road.' 

'  You  might  stop  in  the  Sentier  des  Contre 
bandiers  from  January  to  December  and  not 
meet  a  soul,'  said  Andre\ 

'Ah,  I  see.  There's  no  convincing  you. 
Sceptic !  And  yet,  twenty  years  ago,  you'd 
have  been  pretty  sure  to  meet  a  certain  couple 
of  small  boys  there,  wouldn't  you  ? ' 

'  Si  fait,'  assented  Andr£.  '  We  went  there 
a  good  deal.  But  we  were  privileged.  The 
only  boys  in  this  country  now  are  peasants' 
children,  and  they  have  no  leisure  for  wander- 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN    195 

ing  in  the  wood.  When  they're  not  at  school, 
they're  working  in  the  fields.  As  for  their 
elders,  the  path  is  rough  and  circuitous ;  the 
high  road's  smoother  and  shorter,  no  matter 
where  you're  bound.  Since  our  time,  I  doubt 
if  twenty  people  have  passed  that  way.' 

'That  argues  ill  for  people's  taste.  The 
place  is  lovely.  Underfoot,  it's  quite  over 
grown  with  mosses ;  and  the  branches  inter 
lace  overhead.  Where  the  sun  filters  through, 
you  get  adorable  effects  of  light  and  shadow. 
It's  fearfully  romantic ;  perfect  for  making 
love  in,  and  that  sort  of  thing.  Oh,  if  all  the 
women  hereabouts  hadn't  such  hawk-like  noses ! 
You  see,  the  Duke  of  Wellington  was  here  in 
1814.— No?  He  wasn't?  I  thought  I'd  read 
he  was. — Ah,  well,  he  was  just  over  the  border. 
But  my  lady  of  this  morning  hadn't  a  hawk 
like  nose.  I  can't  quite  remember  what  style 
of  nose  she  did  have,  but  it  wasn't  hawk-like. 
I  say,  frankly,  as  between  old  friends,  have  you 
any  notion  who  she  was  ? ' 

*  What  kind  of  horse  had  she  ? ' 

'  Ah,  there ! '  cried  Paul,  with  a  despairing 
gesture.  'You've  touched  my  vulnerable  point. 
I  never  shall  have  any  memory  for  horses.  I 


196  GREY    ROSES 

think  it  was  black — no,  brown — no,  grey — no, 
green.  Oh,  what  am  I  saying?  I  can't  re 
member.  Do — do  you  make  it  an  essential  ? ' 

'  She  might  have  been  from  Bayonne.' 

'  Who  rides  from  Bayonne  ?  Fancy  a  Bay- 
onnaise  on  a  horse !  They're  all  busy  in  their 
shops.' 

'You  forget  the  military.  She  may  have 
been  the  wife  of  an  officer.' 

'Oh,  horror!  Do  you  really  think  so? 
Then  she  must  have  been  frowsy  and  pro 
vincial,  after  all ;  and  I  thought  her  so  smart 
and  distinguished-looking  and  everything.' 

'  Or  perhaps  an  Englishwoman  from  Biarritz. 
They  sometimes  ride  out  as  far  as  this.' 

'  Dear  Andre",  if  she  were  English,  I  should 
have  known  it  at  a  glance — and  there  the 
matter  would  have  rested.  I  have  at  least  a 
practised  eye  for  English  women.  I  haven't 
lived  half  my  life  in  England  without  learning 
something.' 

'  Well,  there  are  none  but  English  at  Biarritz 
at  this  season.' 

'She  was  never  English.  Don't  try  to  bully 
me.  Besides,  she  evidently  knew  the  country. 
Otherwise,  how  could  she  have  found  the  Sen- 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  197 

tier  des  Contrebandiers  ? — She  wasn't  from 
Granjolaye  ? ' 

4  There's  no  one  at  Granjolaye  save  the 
Queen  herself.' 

'  Deceiver !  Manuela  told  me  last  night. 
She  has  her  little  Court,  her  maids-of-honour. 
I  think  my  inconnue  looked  like  a  maid-of- 
honour.' 

'  She  has  her  aunt,  old  Mademoiselle  Hen- 
riette,  and  a  couple  of  German  women,  count 
esses  or  baronesses  or  something,  with  un 
pronounceable  names.' 

'  I  can't  believe  she's  German.  Still,  I 
suppose  there  are  some  Christian  Germans. 
Perhaps ' 

'They're  both  middle-aged.  Past  fifty,  I 
should  think.' 

'  Oh. — Ah,  well,  that  disposes  of  them.  But 
how  do  you  know  her  Majesty  hasn't  a  friend, 
a  guest,  staying  with  her  ? ' 

'  It's  possible,  but  most  unlikely,  seeing  the 
close  retirement  in  which  she  lives.  She's 
never  once  gone  beyond  her  garden,  since  she 
came  back  there,  three,  four,  years  ago ;  nor 
received  any  visitors.  Personne  —  not  the 
Bishop  of  Bayonne  nor  the  Sous-PreTet,  not 


198  GREY    ROSES 

even  feu  Monsieur  le  Comte,  though  they  all 
called,  as  a  matter  of  civility.  She  has  her 
private  chaplain.  If  a  guest  had  arrived  at 
Granjolaye,  the  whole  country  would  know  it 
and  talk  of  it' 

'  Oh,  I  see  what  you're  trying  to  insinuate,' 
cried  Paul.  'You're  trying  to  insinuate  that 
she  came  from  Chateau  Yroulte.'  That  was 
the  next  nearest  country-house. 

*  Nothing  of  the  sort,'  said  Andre".  'Chateau 
Yroulte  has  been  shut  up  and  uninhabited 
these  two  years — ever  since  the  death  of  old 
Monsieur  Raoul.  It  was  bought  by  a  Spanish 
Jew;  but  he's  never  lived  in  it  and  never  let  it.' 

'  Well,  then,  where  did  she  come  from  ?  Not 
out  of  the  Fourth  Dimension?  Who  was  she? 
Not  a  wraith,  an  apparition  ?  Why  will  you 
entertain  such  weird  conjectures  ? ' 

'She  must  have  come  from  Bayonne.  An 
officer's  wife,  beyond  a  doubt' 

'  Oh,  you're  perfectly  remorseless,'  sighed 
Paul,  and  changed  the  subject  But  he  was 
unconvinced.  Officers'  wives,  in  garrison-towns 
like  Bayonne,  had,  in  his  experience,  always 
been,  as  he  expressed  it,  frowsy  and  provincial. 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  199 
IV 

One  would  think,  by  this  time,  the  priest, 
poor  man,  had  earned  a  moment  of  mental 
rest;  but  Paul's  thirst  for  knowledge  was  in 
satiable.  He  began  to  ply  him  with  questions 
about  the  Queen.  And  though  Andre  could 
tell  him  very  little,  and  though  he  had  heard 
all  that  the  night  before  from  Manuela,  it 
interested  him  curiously  to  hear  it  repeated. 

It  amounted  to  scarcely  more  than  a  single 
meagre  fact.  A  few  months  after  the  divorce, 
she  had  returned  to  Granjolaye,  and  she  had 
never  once  been  known  to  set  her  foot  beyond 
the  limits  of  her  garden  from  that  day  to  this. 
She  had  arrived  at  night,  attended  by  her  two 
German  ladies-in-waiting.  A  carriage  had 
met  her  at  the  railway  station  in  Bayonne,  and 
set  her  down  at  the  doors  of  her  Chateau, 
where  her  aunt,  old  Mademoiselle  Henriette, 
awaited  her.  What  manner  of  life  she  led 
there,  nobody  had  the  poorest  means  of  dis 
covering.  Her  own  servants  (tongue-tied  by 
fear  or  love)  could  not  be  got  to  speak  ;  and 
from  the  eyes  of  all  outsiders  she  was  sed 
ulously  screened.  Paul  could  imagine  her,  in 


200  GREY    ROSES 

her  great  humiliation,  solitary  among  the  ruins 
of  her  high  destiny,  hiding  her  wounds ;  too 
sensitive  to  face  the  curiosity,  too  proud  to 
brook  the  pity,  of  the  world.  She  seemed  to 
him  a  very  grandiose  and  tragic  figure,  and  he 
lost  himself  musing  of  her — her  with  whom  he 
had  played  at  being  married,  when  they  were 
children  here,  so  long,  so  long  ago  She  was 
the  daughter,  the  only  child  and  heiress,  of  the 
last  Due  de  la  Granjolaye  de  Ravanches, — 
the  same  nobleman  of  whom  it  was  told  that 
when  Louis  Napoteon,  meaning  to  be  gracious, 
said  to  him,  'You  bear  a  great  name,  Monsieur,' 
he  had  answered  sweetly, '  The  greatest  of  all, 
I  think.'  It  is  certain  he  was  the  head  of  one 
of  the  most  illustrious  houses  in  the  noblesse  of 
Europe,  descended  directly  and  legitimately, 
through  the  Bourbons,  from  Saint  Louis  of 
France ;  and,  to  boot,  he  was  immensely  rich, 
owning  (it  was  said)  half  the  iron  mines  in  the 
north  of  Spain,  as  well  as  a  great  part  of  the 
city  of  Bayonne.  Paul's  grandmother,  the 
Comtesse  de  Louvance,  was  his  next  neighbour. 
Paul  remembered  him  vaguely  as  a  tall,  drab, 
mild-mannered  man,  with  a  receding  chin,  and 
a  soft,  rather  piping  voice,  who  used  to  tip  him, 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  201 

and  have  him   over  a  good   deal  to  stay  at 
Granjolaye. 

On  the  death  of  Madame  de  Louvance,  the 
property  of  Saint-Graal  had  passed  to  her  son, 
Edmond,  —  Andrews  feu  Monsieur  le  Comte. 
Edmond  rarely  lived  there,  and  never  asked 
his  sister  or  her  boy  there ;  whence,  twenty 
years  ago,  at  the  respective  ages  of  thirteen 
and  eleven,  Paul  and  Helene  had  vanished 
from  each  other's  ken.  But  Edmond  never 
married,  either  ;  and  when,  last  winter,  he  died, 
he  left  a  will  making  Paul  his  heir.  Of 
H&ene's  later  history  Paul  knew  as  much  as 
all  the  world  knows,  and  no  more — so  much, 
that  is,  as  one  could  gather  from  newspapers 
and  public  rumour.  He  knew  of  her  father's 
death,  whereby  she  had  become  absolute  mis 
tress  of  his  enormous  fortune.  He  knew  of 
her  princely  marriage,  and  of  her  elevation  by 
the  old  king  to  her  husband's  rank  of  Royal 
Highness.  He  knew  of  that  swift  series  of 
improbable  deaths  which  had  culminated  in 
her  husband's  accession  to  the  throne,  and  how 
she  had  been  crowned  Queen-Consort  And 
then  he  knew  that  three  or  four  years  after 
wards  she  had  sued  for  and  obtained  a  Bull  of 


202  GREY    ROSES 

Separation  from  the  Pope,  on  the  plea  of  her 
husband's  infidelity  and  cruelty.  The  in 
fidelity,  to  be  sure,  was  no  more  than,  as  a 
Royalty,  if  not  as  a  woman,  she  might  have 
bargained  for  and  borne  with  ;  but  everybody 
remembers  the  stories  of  the  king's  drunken 
violence  that  got  bruited  about  at  the  time. 
Everybody  will  remember,  too,  how,  the  Papal 
Separation  once  pronounced,  he  had  retaliated 
upon  her  with  a  decree  of  absolute  divorce,  and 
a  sentence  of  perpetual  banishment,  voted  by 
his  own  parliament.  Whither  she  had  betaken 
herself  after  these  troubles  Paul  had  never 
heard — until,  yesterday,  arriving  at  Saint- 
Graal,  they  told  him  she  was  living  cloistered 
like  a  nun  at  Granjolaye. 

News  travels  fast  and  penetrates  everywhere 
in  that  lost  corner  of  garrulous  Gascony.  The 
news  that  Paul  had  taken  up  his  residence  at 
Saint -Graal  could  scarcely  fail  to  reach  the 
Queen.  Would  she  remember  their  childish 
intimacy  ?  Would  she  make  him  a  sign  ? 
Would  she  let  him  see  her,  for  old  sake's  sake  ? 
Oh,  in  all  probability,  no.  Most  certainly,  no. 
And  yet — and  yet,  he  couldn't  forbid  a  little 
furtive  hope  to  flicker  in  his  heart. 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN2O3 
V. 

It  was  only  April,  but  the  sun  shone  with 
midsummer  strength. 

After  Andr6  left  him,  he  went  down  into  the 
garden. 

From  a  little  distance  the  house,  against  the 
sky,  looked  insubstantial,  a  water-colour, 
painted  in  grey  and  amber  on  a  field  of  lumin 
ous  blue.  If  he  had  wished  it,  he  could  have 
bathed  himself  in  flowers  ;  hyacinths,  crocuses, 
jonquils,  camellias,  roses,  grew  round  him  every 
where,  sending  up  a  symphony  of  warm  odours; 
further  on,  in  the  grass,  violets,  anemones, 
celandine  ;  further  still,  by  the  margins  of  the 
pond,  narcissuses,  and  tall  white  flowers-de-luce; 
and,  in  the  shrubberies,  satiny  azaleas;  and 
overhead,  the  magnolia  trees,  drooping  with 
their  freight  of  ivory  cups.  The  glass  doors  of 
the  orangery  stood  open,  a  cloud  of  sweet 
ness  hanging  heavily  before  them.  In  the  park, 
the  chestnuts  were  in  full  leaf;  and  surely  a 
thousand  birds  were  twittering  and  piping 
amongst  their  branches. 

*  Oh,  bother !  How  it  cries  out  for  a  woman,' 
said  Paul.  '  It's  such  a  waste  of  good  material.' 


204  GREY    ROSES 

The  beauty  went  to  one's  head.  One  craved 
a  sympathetic  companion  to  share  it  with,  a 
woman  on  whom  to  lavish  the  ardours  it  en 
kindled.  '  If  I  don't  look  out  I  shall  become 
sentimental/  the  lone  man  told  himself. 
'Nature's  so  fearfully  lacking  in  tact.  Fancy 
her  singing  an  epithalamium  in  a  poor  fellow's 
ears,  when  he  doesn't  know  a  single  human 
woman  nearer  than  Paris.'  To  make  matters 
worse,  the  day  ended  in^a  fiery  sunset,  and  then 
there  was  a  full  moon ;  and  in  the  rosery  a 
nightingale  performed  its  sobbing  serenade. 
'  Please  go  out  and  give  that  bird  a  penny,  and 
tell  him  to  go  away,'  Paul  said  to  a  servant. 
It  was  all  very  well  to  jest,  but  at  every  second 
breath  he  sighed  profoundly.  I'm  afraid  he 
had  become  sentimental.  It  seemed  a  serious 
pity  that  what  his  heart  was  full  of  should  spend 
itself  on  the  incapable  air.  His  sense  of  humour 
was  benumbed.  And  when,  presently,  the  frogs 
in  the  pond,  a  hundred  yards  away,  set  up  their 
monotonous  plaintive  concert,  he  laid  down  his 
arms.  '  It's  no  use,  I'm  in  for  it,'  he  confessed. 
After  all,  he  was  out  of  England.  He  was  in 
Gascony,  the  borderland  between  amorous 
France  and  old  romantic  Spain. 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  205 

I  don't  know  whom  his  imagination  dwelt 
the  more  fondly  with :  the  stricken  Queen, 
beyond  there,  alone  in  the  darkness  and  the 
silence,  where  the  night  lay  on  the  forest  of 
Granjolaye ;  or  the  pale  horse-woman  of  the 
morning. 

But  surely,  as  yet,  he  had  no  ghost  of  a 
reason  for  dreaming  that  the  two  were  one  and 
the  same. 


VI. 


1  Now,  let's  be  logical,'  he  said  next  morning. 
*  Let's  be  logical  and  hopeful — yet  not  too 
hopeful,  not  Utopian.  Let's  look  the  matter 
courageously  in  the  face.  Since  she  rode  there 
once,  why  may  she  not  ride  again  in  the 
Sentier  des  Contrebandiers  ?  Why  mayn't  she 
ride  there  often — even  daily?  I  think  that's 
logical.  Don't  you  think  that's  logical  ? ' 

The  person  he  addressed,  a  tall,  slender 
young  man,  with  a  fresh-coloured  skin,  a 
straight  nose,  and  rather  a  ribald  eye,  was 
vigorously  brushing  a  head  of  yellowish  hair, 
in  the  looking-glass  before  him. 

'  Tush !     But  of  course  you  think  so,'  Paul 


206  GREY    ROSES 

went  on.  '  You  always  think  as  I  do.  If  you 
knew  how  I  despise  a  sycophant !  And  yet 

you're    not    bad   looking.      No,    I'll   be 

hanged  if  I  can  honestly  say  that  you're  bad 
looking.  You've  got  nice  hair,  and  plenty  of 
it ;  and  there's  a  weakness  about  your  mouth 
and  chin  that  goes  to  my  heart.  I  hate  firm 
people. — What?  So  do  you?  I  thought  so. 
— Ah,  well,  my  poor  friend,  you're  booked  for 
a  shocking  long  walk  this  morning.  You  must 
summon  your  utmost  fortitude. —  Under  the 
greenwood  tree,  who  loves  to  lie  with  me?1 
he  carolled  forth,  to  Marzials's  tune.  '  But 
come !  I  say !  That's  anticipating.' 

And  he  set  forth  for  the  Smugglers'  Path 
way, — where,  sure  enough,  she  rode  again.  As 
she  passed  him,  her  eyes  met  his  :  at  which  he 
was  conscious  of  a  good  deal  of  interior  com 
motion.  '  By  Jove,  she's  magnificent,  she's 
really  stunning,'  he  exclaimed  to  himself.  He 
perceived  that  she  was  rather  a  big  woman, 
tall,  with  finely  -  rounded,  smoothly  -  flowing 
lines.  Her  hair, — velvety  blue-black  in  its 
shadows, — where  the  light  caught  it  was  dully 
iridescent.  Her  features  were  irregular  enough 
to  give  her  face  a  high  degree  of  individuality, 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  207 

yet  by  no  means  to  deprive  it  of  delicacy  or 
attractiveness.  She  had  a  superb  white  throat, 
and  a  soft  voluptuous  chin ;  and  '  As  I  live,  I 
never  saw  such  a  mouth,'  said  Paul. 

Where  did  she  come  from  ?  Bayonne  ? 
Never.  Andre"  might  have  been  mistaken 
about  Chateau  Yroulte ;  the  Spanish  Jew  had 
perhaps  sold  it,  or  found  a  tenant.  Or,  further 
afield,  there  were  Chateaux  Labenne,  Saumuse, 
d'Orthevielle.  Or  else,  the  Queen  had  a  guest. 

'  Anyhow/  he  mused,  when  he  got  home, 
'that  makes  five,  six  miles  that  you  have 
tramped,  to  enjoy  an  instant's  glimpse  of  her. 
Fortunately  they  say  walking  is  good  for  the 
constitution.  It  only  shows  what  extremities 
a  country  life  may  drive  one  to.' 

The  next  day,  not  only  did  her  eyes  meet 
his,  but  he  could  have  sworn  that  she  almost 
smiled.  Oh,  a  very  furtive  smile,  the  mere 
transitory  suggestion  of  a  smile.  But  the  inner 
commotion  was  more  marked. 

The  next  day  (the  fourth)  she  undoubtedly 
did  smile,  and  slightly  inclined  her  head.  He 
removed  his  hat,  and  went  home,  and  waited 
impatiently  for  twenty-four  hours  to  wear  away, 
*She  smiled — she  bowed/  he  kept  repeating. 


208  GREY    ROSES 

But,  alas,  he  couldn't  forget  that  in  that  remote 
countryside  it  is  very  much  the  fashion  for 
people  who  meet  in  the  roads  and  lanes  to  bow 
as  they  pass. 

On  the  fifth,  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  days 
she  bowed  and  smiled. 

*  I  fairly  wonder  at  myself — to  walk  that 
distance  for  a  bow  and  smile,'  said  Paul.  'To 
morrow  I'm  going  to  speak.  Faut  brusquer  les 
c/wses' 

And  he  penetrated  into  the  forest,  firmly 
determined  to  speak.  '  Only  I  can't  seem  to 
think  of  anything  very  pat  to  say,'  he  sighed. 
'  Hello !  She's  off  her  horse.' 

She  was  off  her  horse,  standing  beside  it, 
holding  the  loose  end  of  a  strap  in  her  hand. 

Providence  was  favouring  him.  Here  was 
his  obvious  chance.  Something  was  wrong. 
He  could  offer  his  assistance.  And  yet,  that 
inner  commotion  was  so  violent,  he  felt  a 
little  bewildered  about  the  mot  juste.  He 
approached  her  gradually,  trying  to  compose 
himself  and  collect  his  wits. 

She  looked  up,  and  said  in  French  '  I  beg 
your  pardon.  Something  has  come  undone 
Can  you  help  me?' 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  209 

Her  voice  was  delicious,  cool  and  smooth 
as  ivory.  His  heart  pounded.  He  vaguely 
bowed,  and  murmured,  '  I  should  be  de 
lighted.' 

She  stood  aside  a  little,  and  he  took  her 
place.  He  bent  over  the  strap  that  was  loose, 
and  bit  his  lips,  and  cursed  his  embarrass 
ments.  '  Come,  I  mustn't  let  her  think  me 
quite  an  ass.'  He  was  astonished  at  himself. 
That  he  should  still  be  capable  of  so  strenuous 
a  sensation !  '  And  I  had  thought  I  was 
blas£ ! '  He  was  intensely  conscious  of  the 
silence,  of  the  solitude  and  dimness  of  the 
forest,  and  of  their  isolation  there,  so  near  to 
each  other,  that  superb  pale  woman  and 
himself.  But  his  eyes  were  bent  on  the  mis 
behaving  strap,  which  he  held  helplessly  be 
tween  his  fingers. 

At  last  he  looked  up  at  her.  '  How  warm 
and  beautiful  and  fragrant  she  is,'  he  thought. 
'With  her  white  face,  with  her  dark  eyes, 
with  those  red  lips  and  that  splendid  figure — 
what  an  heroic  looking  woman  ! ' 

'  This  is  altogether  disgraceful,'  he  said, 
'  and  I  assure  you  I'm  covered  with  confusion. 

But   I    won't  dissemble.      I   haven't    the   re- 
O 


210  GREY    ROSES 

motest  notion  what  needs  to  be  done.  I'm 
afraid  this  is  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  have 
ever  touched  anything  belonging  to  a  horse.' 

He  said  it  with  a  pathetic  drawl,  and  she 
laughed. — '  And  yet  you're  English.' 

'Oh,  I  dare  say  I'm  English  enough. 
Though  I  don't  see  how  you  knew  it.  Don't 
tell  me  you  knew  it  from  my  accent.' 

'  Oh,  non  pas,'  she  hastened  to  protest.  '  But 
you're  the  new  owner  of  Saint-Graal.  Every 
body  of  the  country  knows,  of  course,  that 
the  new  owner  of  Saint-Graal,  Mr.  Warring- 
wood,  is  English.' 

'  Ah,  then  she's  of  the  country,'  was  Paul's 
mental  note. 

'  And  I  thought  all  Englishmen  were  horse 
men,'  she  went  on. 

'  Oh,  there  are  a  few  bright  exceptions — 
there's  a  little  scattered  remnant.  It's  the 
study  of  my  life  to  avoid  being  typical.' 

'  Ah,  well,  then  give  me  the  strap/ 

He  gave  her  the  strap,  and  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye  she  had  snapped  the  necessary  buckle. 
Then  she  looked  up  at  him  and  smiled  oddly. 
It  occurred  to  him  that  the  entire  comedy 
of  the  strap  had  perhaps  been  invented  as 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  211 

an  excuse  for  opening  a  conversation ;  and 
he  was  at  once  flattered  and  disappointed 
'  Oh,  if  she's  that  sort  .  .  .'  he  thought. 

'  I'm  heart-broken  not  to  have  been  able  to 
serve  you/  he  said. 

'  You  can  help  me  to  mount/  she  answered. 

And,  before  he  quite  knew  how  it  was  done, 
he  had  helped  her  to  mount,  and  she  was 
galloping  down  the  path.  The  firm  grasp  of 
her  warm  gloved  hand  on  his  shoulder  accom 
panied  him  to  Saint-Graal.  '  It's  amazing  how 
she  sticks  in  my  mind/  he  said.  He  really 
couldn't  fix  his  attention  on  any  other  subject 
'  I  wonder  who  the  deuce  she  is.  She's  giving 
me  my  money's  worth  in  walking.  That 
business  of  the  strap  was  really  brazen.  Still, 
one  mustn't  quarrel  with  the  means  if  one 
desires  the  end.  I  hope  she  isn't  that  sort.' 


VII 

On  the  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth  days, 
she  passed  him  with  a  bow  and  a  good- 
morning. 

'This    is    too    much!'  he  groaned,  in  the 


212  GREY    ROSES 

silence  of  his  chamber.  'She's  doing  it  with 
malice.  I'll  not  be  trifled  with.  I— I'll  do 
something  desperate.  I'll  pretend  to  faint, 
and  she'll  have  to  get  down  and  bandage  up 
my  wounds.' 

On  the  thirteenth  day,  as  they  met,  she 
stopped  her  horse. 

'You're  at  least  typically  English  in  one 
respect,'  she  said. 

'Oh,  unkind  lady!  To  announce  it  to  me 
in  this  sudden  way.  Then  my  life's  a  failure.' 

'  I  mean  in  your  fondness  for  long  walks.' 

'Ah,  then  you're  totally  in  error.  I  hate 
long  walks.' 

'  But  it's  a  good  ten  kilometres  to  and  from 
your  house ;  and  you  do  it  every  morning.' 

'That's  only  because  there  aren't  any 
omnibuses  or  cabs  or  things.  And'  (he  re 
minded  himself  that  if  she  was  that  sort,  he 
might  be  bold)  '  I'm  irresistibly  attracted 
here.' 

'  It's  very  pretty,'  she  admitted,  and  rode 
on. 

He  looked  after  her,  grinding  his  teeth. 
Was  she  that  sort?  'One  never  can  tell. 
Her  face  is  so  fine — so  noble  even.' 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN2I3 

The  next  day,  'Yes,  I  suppose  it's  very 
pretty.  But  I  wasn't  thinking  of  Nature,' 
he  informed  her,  as  she  approached. 

She  drew  up. 

'  Oh,  it  has  its  human  interest  too,  no 
doubt.'  She  glanced  in  the  direction  of  the 
Chateau  of  Granjolaye. 

'  The  Queen,'  said  he.  '  But  one  never  sees 
her.' 

'That  adds  the  charm  of  mystery,  don't 
you  feel?  To  think  of  that  poor  young 
exiled  woman,  after  so  grand  a  beginning, 
ending  so  desolately — shut  up  alone  in  her 
mysterious  castle !  It's  like  a  legend.' 

'  Then  you're  not  of  her  Court  ? ' 

'  I  ?     Of  her  Court  ?    Mais  quelle  idte  ! ' 

'  It  was  only  a  hypothesis.  Of  course,  you 
know  I'm  devoured  by  curiosity.  My  days 
are  spent  in  wondering  who  you  are.' 

She  laughed.  '  You  must  have  a  care,  or 
you'll  be  typical,'  she  warned  him. 

'  I  never  said  I  wasn't  human,'  he  called 
after  her,  as  she  cantered  away. 


214  GREY    ROSES 

VIII 

The  next  day  still  (the  fifteenth), '  Haven't 
I  heard  you  lived  at  Saint-Graal  when  you 
were  a  child?'  she  asked. 

*  If  you  have,  for  once  in  a  way  rumour  has 
told  the  truth.  I  lived  at  Saint-Graal  till  I 
was  thirteen.' 

'  Then  perhaps  you  knew  her  ? ' 

'Her?' 

'The  Queen.  Mademoiselle  de  la  Gran- 
jolaye  de  Ravanches,' 

'Oh,  I  knew  her  very  well — when  we  were 
children.' 

'  Tell  me  all  about  her.' 

'  It  would  be  a  long  story.' 

She  leaped  from  her  horse ;  then,  raising  her 
riding  whip,  and  looking  the  animal  severely 
in  the  eye,  '  B6zigue !  Attention,'  she  said 
impressively.  'You're  to  stop  exactly  where 
you  are  and  not  play  any  tricks.  Entendu  ? 
Bien.'  She  moved  a  few  steps  down  the 
pathway,  and  stopped  at  an  opening  among 
the  trees,  where  the  ground  was  a  cushion 
of  bright  green  moss.  '  By  Jove,  she  is  at 
her  ease,'  thought  Paul,  who  followed  her. 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN2I5 

*  How  splendidly  she  walks — what  undulations!' 
From  the  French  point  of  view,  as  she  must  be 
aware,  the  situation  gave  him  all  sorts  of 
rights. 

She  sank  softly,  gracefully,  upon  the  moss. 

'It's  a  long  story.  Tell  it  me,'  she  com 
manded,  and  pointed  to  the  earth.  He  sat 
down  facing  her,  at  a  little  distance. 

'  It's  odd  you  should  have  chosen  this 
place,'  said  he. 

'Odd?  Why?'  She  looked  at  him  in 
quiringly.  For  a  moment  their  eyes  held 
each  other ;  and  all  at  once  the  blood  swept 
through  him  with  suffocating  violence.  She 
was  so  beautiful,  so  sumptuous,  so  warmly 
and  richly  feminine ;  and  surely  the  circum 
stances  were  not  anodyne.  Her  softly  rounded 
face,  its  very  pallor,  the  curve  and  colour  of 
her  lips,  her  luminous  dark  eyes,  the  smooth 
modulations  of  her  voice,  and  then  her  loose 
abundance  of  black  hair,  and  the  swelling 
lines  of  her  breast,  the  fluent  contour  of  her 
waist  and  hips,  under  the  fine  black  cloth  of 
her  dress — all  these,  with  the  silence  of  the 
forest,  the  heat  of  the  southern  day,  the 
woodland  fragrances  of  which  the  air  was 


216  GREY    ROSES 

full,  and  the  sense  of  being  mtimately  alone 
with  her,  set  up  within  him  a  turbulent  vibra 
tion,  half  of  delight,  half  of  pained  suspense. 
And  the  complaisant  informality  with  which 
she  met  him  played  a  sustaining  counter 
point.  '  What  luck,  what  luck,  what  luck,' 
were  the  words  which  shaped  themselves  to 
the  strong  beating  of  his  pulses.  What  would 
happen  next  ?  Whither  would  it  lead  ?  He 
had  savoured  the  bouquet,  he  was  famished 
to  taste  the  wine.  And  yet,  so  complicated 
are  our  human  feelings,  he  was  obscurely 
vexed.  Only  two  kinds  of  woman,  he  would 
have  maintained  yesterday,  could  conceivably 
do  a  thing  like  this  :  an  ingenue  or  '  that  sort.' 
She  was'nt  an  ingenue.  Something,  at  the 
same  time,  half  assured  him  that  she  wasn't 
'  that  sort,1  either.  But — the  circumstances  1 
The  situation ! 

*  Why  odd  ? '  she  repeated. 

'  Oh,  I  don't  want  to  talk  about  the  Queen,' 
he  said,  in  a  smothered  voice. 

'  The  oddity  relates  itself  to  the  Queen  ? ' 

'  Oh,  this  is  where  we  used  to  waste  half  our 
lives  when  we  were  children.  That's  all.  This 
was  our  favourite  nook.' 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN2I? 

'Perfect  then  for  the  story  you're  going  to 
tell  me.' 

'What  story?' 

'  You  said  it  was  a  long  story.' 

'There's  really  no  story  at  all.'  His  eyes 
were  fastened  upon  her  hands,  small  and  taper 
ing,  in  their  tan  gauntlets.  The  point  of  a 
patent-leather  boot  glanced  from  the  edge  of 
her  skirt.  A  short  gold  watch-chain  dangled 
from  her  breast,  a  cluster  of  charms  at  the  end. 

'  You  said  it  was  a  long  story,'  she  repeated 
sternly. 

rlt  would  be  a  dull  one.  We  knew  each 
other  when  we  were  infants,  and  used  to  play 
together.  That  is  all.' 

'But  what  was  she  like?  Describe  her  to 
me.  I  adore  soimenirs  d'enfance'  Her  eyes 
were  bright  with  eagerness. 

'Oh,  she  was  very  pretty.  The  prettiest 
little  girl  I've  ever  seen.  She  had  the  most 
wonderful  eyes — deep,  deep,  into  which  you 
could  look  a  hundred  miles;  you  know  the  sort; 
dreamy,  poetical,  sad ;  oh,  lovely  eyes.  And 
she  used  to  wear  her  hair  down  her  back ;  it 
was  very  long,  and  soft — soft  as  smoke,  almost ; 
almost  impalpable.  She  always  dressed  in 


2i8  GREY    ROSES 

white — short  white  frocks,  with  broad  sashes, 
red  or  blue.  That  was  the  fashion  then  for 
little  girls.  Perhaps  it  is  still — I've  never 
noticed.' 

'  Yes.     Don't  stop.     Go  on.' 

*  Dear  me,  I  don't  know  what  to  say.  I  used 
to  see  her  a  good  deal,  because  they  were  our 
neighbours.  Her  father  used  to  ask  me  over 
to  stay  at  Granjolaye.  She  needed  a  playmate, 
and  I  was  the  only  one  available.  Sometimes 
she  would  come  and  spend  a  day  at  Saint- 
Graal.  Do  you  know  Granjolaye  ?  The  castle  ? 
It's  worth  going  over.  It  used  to  belong  to  the 
Kings  of  Navarre,  you  know.  We  used  to 
play  together  in  the  great  audience  chamber, 
and  chase  each  other  through  the  secret  passages 
in  the  walls.  At  Saint-Graal  we  confined  our 
selves  to  the  garden.  Her  head  was  full  of  the 
queerest  romantic  notions.  You  couldn't  per 
suade  her  that  the  white  irises  that  grew  about 
our  pond  weren't  enchanted  princesses.  One 
day  we  filled  a  bottle  with  holy  water  at  the 
Church,  and  then  she  sprinkled  them  with  it, 
pronouncing  an  incantation.  "If  ye  were  born 
as  ye  are,  remain  as  ye  are  ;  but  if  ye  were 
born  otherwise,  resume  your  original  shapes." 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  219 

They  remained  as  they  were  ;  but  that  didn't 
shake  her  faith.  Something  was  amiss  with 
the  holy  water,  or  with  the  form  of  her 
incantation.' 

She  laughed  softly.  'Then  she  was  nice? 
You  liked  her  ? '  she  asked. 

'  Oh,  I  was  passionately  in  love  with  her. 
All  children  are  passionately  in  love  with  some 
body,  aren't  they  ?  A  real  grande  passion. 
It  began  when  I  was  about  ten.'  He  broke 
off,  to  laugh.  '  Do  you  care  for  love  stories  ? 
I'm  a  weary,  wayworn  man  ;  but  upon  my 
word,  I've  never  in  all  my  life  felt  any  such 
intense  emotion  for  a  woman,  anything  that  so 
nearly  deserved  to  be  called  love,  as  I  felt  for 
H61ene  de  la  Granjolaye  when  I  was  an  infant. 
Night  after  night  I  used  to  lie  awake  thinking 
how  I  loved  her — longing  to  tell  her  so — plan 
ning  how  I  would,  next  day — composing  tre 
mendous  declarations — imagining  her  response 
— and  waiting  in  a  fever  of  impatience  for  the 
day  to  come.  But  then,  when  I  met  her,  I 
didn't  dare.  Bless  me,  how  I  used  to  thrill  at 
sight  of  her,  with  love,  with  fear.  How  I  used 
to  look  at  her  face,  and  pine  to  kiss  her.  If 
her  hand  touched  mine,  I  almost  fainted  It's 


220  GREY    ROSES 

very  strange  that  children  before  their  teens 
should  be  able  to  experience  the  whole  gamut 
of  the  spiritual  side  of  love  ;  and  yet  it's  certain.' 

She  was  looking  at  him  with  intent  eyes,  her 
lips  parted  a  little.  '  But  you  did  tell  her  at 
last,  I  hope  ? '  she  said,  anxiously. 

He  had  got  warmed  to  his  subject,  and  her 
interest  inspired  him.  '  Oh,  at  last !  It  was 
here — in  this  very  spot.  I  had  picked  a  lot  of 
celandine,  and  stuck  them  about  in  her  hair, 
where  they  shone  like  stars.  Oh,  the  joy  of 
being  allowed  to  touch  her  hair !  It  made 
utterance  a  necessity.  I  fumbled  and  stammered, 
and  blushed  and  thrilled,  and  almost  choked. 
And  at  last  I  blurted  it  out.  "  I  love  you  so. 
I  love  you  so."  That — after  the  eloquent  de 
clarations  I  had  composed  overnight ! ' 

'  And  she  ? ' 

'She  answered  quite  simply,  "Et  moi,  je  t'aime 
tant,  aussi."  And  then  she  began  to  cry.  And 
when  I  asked  her  what  she  was  crying  for,  she 
explained  that  I  oughtn't  to  have  left  her  in 
doubt  for  so  long ;  she  had  been  so  unhappy 
from  fear  that  I  didn't  "  love  her  so."  She  was 
quite  unfemininely  frank,  you  see.  Oh,  the 
ecstacy  of  that  hour  1  The  ecstacy  of  our 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  221 

first  kiss  !  From  that  time  on  it  was  "  mon 
petit  mari"  and  "ma  petite  femme."  The 
greatest  joy  in  life  for  me,  for  us,  was  to  sit 
together,  holding  each  other's  hands,  and  re 
peating  from  time  to  time,  "  J'  t'aime  tant,  j' 
t'aime  tant."  Now  and  then  we  would  vary  it 
with  a  fugue  upon  our  names — "  H61ene ! " — 
"  Paul ! " '  He  laughed.  '  Children,  with  their 
total  lack  of  humour,  are  the  drollest  of  created 
beings,  aren't  they  ? ' 

'Oh,  I  don't  think  it's  droll.  I  know,  all 
children  have  those  desperate  love  affairs.  But 
they  seem  to  me  pathetic.  How  did  it  go  on  ?' 

'  Oh,  for  two  or  three  years  we  lived  in 
Paradise.  There  were  no  other  boys  in  the 
neighbourhood,  so  she  was  constant* 

'  For  three  years  ?     And  then  ? ' 

'Then  my  grandmother  died,  and  I  was 
carried  off  to  Paris.  She  remained  here.  And 
so  it  ended.' 

'  And  when  did  you  meet  her  next  ?  After 
you  were  grown  up  ? ' 

'  I  have  never  met  her  since.' 

'  You  must  have  followed  her  career  with  a 
special  interest,  though  ? ' 

'  Ak,  quant  d  $a  / ' 


222  GREY    ROSES 

'Her  marriage,  her  coronation,  her  divorce. 
Poor  Woman  !  What  she  must  have  suffered. 
Have  you  made  any  attempt  to  see  her  since 
you  came  back  to  Saint-Graal  ? ' 

'  Ak,  merci,  non  I  If  she  wanted  to  see  me, 
she'd  send  for  me.' 

'She  sees  no  one,  everybody  says.  But  I 
should  think  she'd  like  to  see  you — her  old 

playmate.  If  she  should  send  for  you But 

I  suppose  I  musn't  ask  you  to  tell  me  about  it 
afterwards  ?  Of  course,  like  everybody  else  in 
her  neighbourhood,  I'm  awfully  interested  in 
her.' 

There  was  a  moment's  silence.  She  looked 
at  the  moss  beneath  her,  and  stroked  it  lightly 
with  a  finger-tip.  Paul  looked  at  her. 

'  You're  horribly  unkind,'  he  said  at  last. 

'  Unkind  ? '  She  raised  wide  eyes  of  innocent 
surprise. 

'  You  know  I'm  in  an  agony  of  curiosity.' 

'  About  what  ? ' 

'  About  you.' 

'Me?' 

'  Yourself.' 

She  lifted  the  cluster  of  charms  at  the  end  of 
her  watch-chain.  One  of  them  was  a  tiny 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  223 

golden  whistle.  On  this  she  blew,  and  Be"zigue 
came  trotting  up.  She  mounted  him  to-day 
without  Paul's  assistance.  Smiling  down  on 
the  young  man,  she  said, '  Oh,  after  the  reckless 
way  in  which  I've  cast  the  conventions  to  the 
winds,  you  really  can't  expect  me  to  give  you 
my  name  and  address.'  And  before  he  could 
answer,  she  was  gone. 

He  walked  about  for  the  rest  of  the  day  in  a 
great  state  of  excitement.  '  My  dear/  he  told 
himself, '  if  you're  not  careful,  something  serious 
will  happen  to  you.' 


X. 


When  he  woke  up  he  saw  that  it  was  raining; 
and  in  that  part  of  the  world  it  really  never 
does  rain  but  it  pours.  Needless  to  touch  upon 
the  impatient  ennui  with  which  he  roamed  the 
house.  He  sent  for  Andre"  to  lunch  with  him. 

'  Andre",  can't  you  do  something  to  stop  this 
rain  ? '  he  asked  ;  but  Andre"  stared.  '  Oh,  I 
was  thinking  of  the  priests  of  Baal,'  Paul  ex 
plained.  '  I  beg  your  pardon.'  And  after  the 
coffee, '  Let's  go  up  and  play  in  the  garret,'  he 


224  GREY    ROSES 

proposed  :  at  which  Andr6  stared  harder  still. 
'  We  always  used  to  play  in  the  garret  on  rainy 
days,'  Paul  reminded  him.  '  Mais,  ma  foi, 
monsieur,  nous  ne  sommes  plus  des  gosses,' 
Andr£  answered. 

'  Is  there  any  news  about  the  Queen  ? '  Paul 
asked. 

'  There's  never  any  news  from  Granjolaye,' 
said  Andr6. 

'  And  the  lady  I  met  in  the  forest  ?  Have 
you  any  new  theory  who  she  is  ? ' 

*  An  officer's  wife  from  Ba ' 

'  Andr6! '  cried  Paul.  '  If  you  say  that  again, 
I  shall  write  to  the  Pope  and  ask  him  to  dis 
frock  you.' 

The  next  day  was  fine  ;  but,  though  he  spent 
the  entire  morning  in  the  Smuggler's  Pathway, 
he  did  not  meet  her.  '  It's  because  the  ground's 
still  wet,'  he  reasoned.  '  Oh,  why  don't  things 
dry  quicker  ? ' 

The  next  day  he  did  meet  her — and  she 
passed  him  with  a  bow.  He  shook  his  fist  at 
her  unsuspecting  back. 

The  next  day  he  perceived  B6zigue  riderless 
near  the  opening  among  the  trees.  The  horse 
neighed,  as  he  drew  near.  She  was  seated  on 


\ 

CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN225 

the  moss.  He  stood  still,  and  bowed  tenta 
tively  from  the  path.  '  Are  you  disengaged  ? 
May  I  come  in  ? '  he  asked. 

'  Oh,  do,'  she  answered.  '  And — won't  you 
take  a  seat  ? ' 

'  Thank  you,'  and  he  placed  himself  beside 
her. 

'  Tell  me  about  your  life  afterwards,'  she  said. 

'  My  life  afterwards  ?     After  what  ? ' 

'  After  you  were  carried  off  to  Paris.' 

'  What  earthly  interest  can  that  have  ? ' 

'  I  want  to  know.' 

'  It  was  the  average  life  of  the  average  youth 
whose  family  is  in  average  circumstances.' 

'  You  went  to  school  ? ' 

*  What  makes  you  doubt  it  ?     Do  I  seem  so 
illiterate  ? ' 

'Where?     In  England?     Eton?     Harrow?' 

*  No,  in  Paris.     The  Lycee  Louis  le  Grand. 
Oh,  I  have  received  an  education — no  expense 
was  spared.     I  forget  how  many  years  I  passed 
&  faire  mon  droit  in  the  Latin  Quarter.     You'd 
be  surprised  if  you  were  to  discover  what  a  lot 
I  know.     Shall  I  prove  to  you  that  the  sum  of 
the  angles  of  a  right-angled  triangle  is  equal  to 
two  right  angles  ?   Or  conjugate  the  verb  amo  ? 


226  GREY    ROSES 

Or  give  you  a  brief  summary  of  the  doctrines 
of  Aristotle  ?  Or  an  account  of  the  life  and 
works  of  Gustavus  Alolphus  ? ' 

'  When  did  you  go  to  England  ?' 

'  Not  till  Necessity  drove  me  there.  I  had 
to  eke  out  a  meagre  patrimony.  I  went  to 
England  to  seek  my  fortune.' 

'  Did  you  find  it  ? ' 

'  I  never  had  the  knack  of  finding  things. 
When  my  father  used  to  send  me  into  the 
library  to  fetch  a  book,  or  my  mother  into  her 
dressing-room  to  fetch  her  scissors,  I  could 
never  find  them.  I  looked  for  it  everywhere, 
but  I  couldn't  find  it.' 

'  What  did  you  do  ? ' 

*  I  lived  by  my  wits.     Chevalier  cTindustrie! 
'  Ah,  non.    Je  ne  crois pas* 

*  You  don't  believe  my  wits  were  sufficient  to 
the  task  ?     I  was  like  the  London  hospitals — 
practically    unendowed ;    only   they    wouldn't 
support  me  by  voluntary  contributions.     So — 
I  wrote  for  the  newspapers,  I'm  afraid.' 

'  For  the  newspapers  ? ' 

'  Oh,  I  admit,  it's  scandalous.  But  you  may 
as  well  know  the  worst.  A  penny-a-liner ! 
But  I  shan't  do  so  any  more,  now  that  I  have 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  227 

stepped  into  the  shoes  of  my  uncle.  You'll 
never  catch  me  fatiguing  myself  with  work, 
now  that  I've  got  enough  to  live  on  ! '  . 

'  Lazy ! ' 

4  Oh,  I'm  everything  that's  reprehensible. 

1  And  you  never  married  ? ' 

4  I  don't  think  so.' 

'  Aren't  you  sure  ?  * 

*  As  sure  as  one  can  be  of  anything  in  this 
doubtful  world.' 

4  But  why  didn't  you  ? ' 

4  Pa s  si  b$te.  Marriage  is  such  a  bore.  I 
never  met  a  woman  I  could  bear  the  thought 
of  passing  all  my  life  with.' 

*  Conceited ! ' 

'  I  daresay.  If  you  like  false  modesty  better, 
I'll  try  to  meet  your  wishes.  What  woman 
would  have  had  a  poor  devil  like  me  ? ' 

4  Still,  marriage  is,  after  all,  very  much  in 
vogue.' 

4  Yes,  but  it's  mad.  Either  you  must  love 
the  woman  you  marry,  or  you  mustn't  love  her. 
But  if  you  marry  a  woman  without  loving  her, 
I  hope  you'll  not  deny  you're  doing  a  very 
shocking  thing.  If,  on  the  contrary,  you  do 
love  her,  raison  de  plus  for  not  marrying  her 


228  GREY    ROSES 

Fancy  marrying  a  woman  you  love  ;  and  then, 
day  by  day,  watching  the  beautiful  wild  flower 
of  love  fatten  into  a  domestic  cabbage  !  Isn't 
that  a  syllogism  ? ' 

'  You  have  been  in  love  then  ? ' 

*  Never.' 

1  Never  ? ' 

'  Oh,  I've  made  a  fool  of  myself  occasionally, 
of  course.     But  I've  never  been  in  love.' 
'  Except  with  Hdlene  de  la  Granjolaye  ? '  • 

*  Oh,  yes,  I  was  in  love  with  her — when  I  was 
ten.' 

'Till  you  were  .  .  .?* 

'Till  I  was   .  .   .?' 

'  How  long  did  it  take  you  to  get  over  it,  I 
mean  ? ' 

'I  don't  know.  It  wore  away  gradually. 
The  tooth  of  time.' 

'  You're  not  at  all  in  love  with  her  any  more?' 

'  After  twenty  years  ?  And  she  a  Queen  ? 
I  hope  I  know  my  place.' 

'  But  if  you  were  to  meet  her  again  ? ' 

*  I  should    probably    suffer    a    horrible    dis 
illusion.' 

'  But  you  have  found,  at  any  rate,  that  "  first 
love  is  best"?' 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  229 

'  First  and  last.  The  last  shall  be  first,'  he 
said  oracularly. 

'  Don't  you  smoke  ? '  she  asked. 

'  Oh,  one  by  one  you  drag  my  vices  from  me. 
Let  me  own,  en  bloc,  that  I  have  them  all.' 

'  Then  you  may  light  a  cigarette  and  give  me 
one.' 

He  gave  her  a  cigarette,  and  held  a  match 
while  she  lit  it  Then  he  lit  one  for  himself. 
Her  manner  of  smoking  was  leisurely,  luxurious. 
She  inhaled  the  smoke,  and  let  it  escape  slowly 
in  a  slender  spiral.  He  looked  at  her  through 
the  thin  cloud,  and  his  heart  closed  in  a  con 
vulsion.  '  How  big  and  soft  and  rich — how 
magnificent  she  is — like  some  great  splendid 
flower,  heavy  with  sweetness ! '  he  thought. 
He  had  to  breathe  deep  to  overcome  a  feeling 
of  suffocation ;  he  was  trembling  in  every 
nerve,  and  he  wondered  if  she  perceived  it 
He  divined  the  smooth  perfection  of  her  body, 
through  the  supple  cloth  that  moulded  it ;  he 
noticed  vaguely  that  the  dress  she  wore  to-day 
was  blue,  not  black.  He  divined  the  warmth 
of  her  round  white  throat,  the  perfume  of  her 
skin.  '  And  how  those  lips  could  kiss ! '  his 
imagination  shouted  wildly.  Again,  the  silence, 


230  GREY    ROSES 

the  solitude  and  dimness  of  the  forest,  their  inti 
mate  seclusion  there,  the  great  trees,  the  sky,  the 
bright  green  cushion  of  moss,  the  few  detached 
sounds, — bird-notes,  rustling  leaves,  snapping 
twigs, — by  which  the  silence  was  intensified  ; 
again  all  these  lent  an  acuteness  to  his  sensa 
tions.  Her  dark  eyes  were  smiling  lustrously, 
languidly,  at  the  smoke  curling  in  the  air  before 
her,  as  if  they  saw  a  vision  in  it. 

*  You're  adorable  at  moments,'  he  said  at  last. 
'  At  moments  !     Thank  you.'     She  laughed. 

*  Oh,  you  can't  expect  me  to  pretend  that  I 
find  you  adorable  always.   There  are  times  when 
I  could  fall  upon  you  and  exterminate  you.' 

'Why?' 

'  When  you  passed  me  yesterday  with  a  nod.' 

''Twas  your  own  fault  You  didn't  look 
amusing  yesterday.' 

'When  you  baffle  my  perfectly  innocent 
desire  to  know  whom  I  have  the  honour  of 
addressing.' 

'  Shall  I  summon  B^zigue  ? '  she  asked,  touch 
ing  her  bunch  of  charms. 

He  acted  his  despair. 

'  Besides,  what  does  it  matter  ?  I  know  who 
you  are,'  she  went  on.  '  Let  that  console  you.' 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN23I 

'Did  I  say  you  were  adorable?  You're 
hateful.' 

4  What's  in  a  name  ?  Nothing  but  the  power 
to  compromise.  Would  you  have  me  com 
promise  myself  more  than  I've  done  already  ? 
A  woman  who  makes  a  man's  acquaintance 
without  an  introduction,  and  talks  about  love, 
and  smokes  cigarettes,  with  him  ! '  She  gave 
a  little  shudder.  *  How  horrible  it  sounds  when 
you  state  it  baldly.' 

'One  must  never  state  things  baldly.  One 
must  qualify.  It's  the  difference  between  Truth 
and  mere  Fact.  Truth  is  Fact  qualified.  You 
must  add  that  the  woman  knew  the  man  by 
common  report  to  be  of  the  highest  possible 
respectability,  and  that  she  saw  for  herself  he 
was  (alas  !)  altogether  harmless.  And  then  you 
must  explain  that  the  affair  took  place  in  the 
country,  in  the  spring ;  and  that  the  cigarettes 
were  the  properest  conceivable  sort  of  cigarettes, 
having  been  rolled  by  hand  in  England.' 

'You  wouldn't  believe  me  if  I  said  I  had 
never  done  such  a  thing  before  ?  They  all  say 
that,  don't  they  ? ' 

'  Yes,  they  all  say  that  But,  oddly  enough, 
I  do  believe  you.' 


232  GREY    ROSES 

'  Then  you're  not  entirely  lost  to  grace,  not 
thoroughly  a  cynic.' 

*  Oh,  there  are  some  good  women.' 

1  And  some  good  men  ? ' 

'Possibly.  I've  never  happened  to  meet 
one.' 

'  The  eye  of  the  beholder ! ' 

'  If  you  like.  But  I  don't  know.  There  are 
such  things,  no  doubt,  as  cynics  by  tempera 
ment  ;  congenital  cynics.  Then,  indeed,  you 
may  cry :  The  eye  of  the  beholder.  But  others 
become  cynics,  are  driven  into  cynicism,  by  sad 
experience.  I  started  in  life  with  the  rosiest 
faith  in  my  fellow-man.  If  I've  lost  it,  it's 
because  he's  always  behaved  shabbily  to  me, 
soon  or  late ;  always  taking  some  advantage. 
The  struggle  for  existence !  We're  all  beasts, 
who  take  part  in  it ;  we  must  be,  or  we're  de 
voured.  Women  for  the  most  part  are  out  of 
it  Anyhow,  plus  je  vois  les  homines^  plusfaime 
les  femmes! 

'  Are  you  a  beast  too  ? ' 

'  Oh,  yes.  But  I  don't  bite.  I'm  the  kind  of 
beast  that  runs  away.  I  lie  by  the  fire  and 
purr,  but  at  the  first  sign  of  trouble  I  jump  for 
the  open  door.  That's  why  the  other  fellows 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  233 

always  got  the  better  of  me.  They  knew  I  was 
a  coward,  and  profited  by  the  knowledge.  If 
my  dear  good  uncle  hadn't  died,  I  don't  know 
how  I  should  have  lived.' 

'  I'm  afraid  you  have  "  lived  "  too  much.' 

4  That  was  uncalled  for.' 

'  Or  else  your  looks  belie  you,' 

1  My  looks  ? ' 

t  You're  so  dissipated-looking/ 

'  Dissipated-looking  ?     I  ?     Horror ! ' 

'  You've  got  such  a  sophisticated  eye,  if  that 
suits  you  better.  You  look  blast! 

'You're  a  horrid,  rude,  uncomplimentary 
thing.' 

'Oh,  if  you're  going  to  call  names,  I  must 
summon  my  natural  protector.'  She  blew  on 
her  golden  whistle,  and  up  trotted  the  obedient 
B6zigue. 

That  evening  Paul  said  to  himself,  '  1  vastly 
fear  that  something  serious  has  happened  to 
you.  No,  she's  everything  you  like,  but  she 
isn't  that  sort' 

He  was  depressed,  dejected  ;  the  reaction,  no 
doubt,  from  the  excitement  of  her  presence. 
*  She's  married,  of  course ;  and  of  course  she's 
got  a  lover.  And  of  course  she'll  never  care  a 


234  GREY    ROSES 

pin  for  the  likes  of  me.  And  of  course  she 
sees  what's  the  matter  with  me,  and  is  laughing 
in  her  sleeve.  And  I  had  thought  myself  im 
pervious.  Oh,  damn  all  women.' 


1  Don't  stop ;  ride  on,'  he  called  out  to  her, 
next  morning,  '  I  shan't  be  amusing  to-day. 
I'm  frightfully  low  in  my  mind.' 

'  Perhaps  it  will  amuse  me  to  study  you  in  a 
new  aspect/  she  said.  *  You  can  entertain  me 
with  the  story  of  your  griefs.' 

'Bare  my  wounds  to  make  a  lady  smile. 
Oh,  anything  to  oblige  you.' 

She  leapt  lightly  from  B6zigue,  and  sank 
upon  the  moss. 

'What  is  it  all  about?' 

'  Oh,  not  what  you  imagine,'  said  he.  *  It's 
about  my  debts.' 

'  I  had  hoped  it  was  about  your  sins.' 

'  My  sins  !  I'm  kept  awake  at  night  by  the 
thought  of  yours' 

'  Your  conscience  is  too  sensitive.  Mine  are 
but  peccadillos.' 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  235 

*  You  say  that  because  you've  no  sense  of 
moral  proportion.  Are  cruelty  and  dissimula 
tion  pecadillos  ? ' 

'  They  may  be  even  virtues.  It  all  depends. 
Discipline  and  reserve  ! ' 

'  I'll  forgive  you  everything  if  you'll  tell  me 
your  name.' 

'  Oh,  I  have  debts,  as  well  as  you.' 

'  What  have  debts  to  do  with  the  question  ? ' 

'  I  owe  something  to  my  reputation.' 

4  If  we're  going  to  consider  our  reputations, 
what  of  mine  ? ' 

'  Yours  has  preceded  you  into  the  country,' 
she  said,  and  drew  from  her  pocket  a  small,  thin 
volume,  bound  in  grey  cloth,  with  a  gilt  design. 

1  Oh,  heavens ! '  cried  Paul.  '  This  is  how 
one's  past  finds  one  out.' 

'  Oh,  some  of  them  aren't  bad,'  she  said. 
'  Wait,  I'll  read  you  one.' 

'  Then  you  know  English  ? ' 

1  A  leetle.  Bot  the  one  I  shall  read  is  in 
Franch.' 

And  then  she  read  out,  in  an  enchanting 
voice,  one  of  his  own  French  sonnets.  '  That 
isn't  bad,'  she  added.  '  Do  you  think  it  hope 
lessly  bad  ? ' 


236  GREY    ROSES 

'  It  shows  promise,  perhaps — when  you  read 
it' 

'  It  is  strange,  though,  that  it  should  have  been 
written  by  a  man  who  had  never  been  in  love.' 

'  Imagination  !  Upon  my  word,  I  never  had 
been.  Besides,  the  idea  is  stolen.  It's  almost 
a  literal  translation  from  Rossetti.  What  with 
a  little  imagination  and  a  little  ingenuity,  one 
can  do  wonderfully  well  on  other  people's  ex 
perience.' 

'  I  don't  believe  you.  You  have  been  in  love 
a  hundred  times.' 

'  Never.' 

'  Never  ?  Not  even  with  Helene  de  la  Gran- 
jolaye  de  Ravanches  ? ' 

*  Oh,  I  don't  count  my  infancy.  Never  with 
anybody  else.' 

'  It's  very  strange,'  she  said.  '  Tell  me  some 
more  about  her.' 

'  Oh,  bother  her.' 

'  I  suppose  when  they  carried  you  off  to  Paris 
you  had  a  tearful  parting  ?  Did  you  kick  and 
scream  and  say  you  wouldn't  go  ? ' 

'  Why  do  you  always  make  me  talk  about 
the  Queen  ? ' 

'  She  interests  me.    And  when  you  talk  about 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  237 

the  Queen,  I  rather  like  you.  It  is  nice  to  see 
that  th^re  was  a  time  when  you  were  capable 
of  an  emotion.' 

'You  fancy  I'm  incapable  now?' 

'Tell  me  about  your  leave-taking,  your 
farewells.' 

'  Bother  our  farewells.' 

'  They  must  have  been  heart-rending  ? ' 

'  Probably.' 

'  Don't  you  remember  ? ' 

'  Oh,  yes,  I  remember.' 

'  Go  on.  Don't  make  me  drag  it  from  you 
by  inches.  Tell  it  to  me  in  a  pretty  melodious 
narrative.  Either  that,  or — '  she  touched  her 
whistle. 

'  That's  barefaced  intimidation.' 

She  raised  the  whistle  to  her  lips. 

'  Stay,  stay ! '  he  cried,  '  I  yield.' 

'  I  wait,'  she  answered. 

He  bent  his  brows  for  an  instant,  then  looked 
up  smiling.  '  If  it  puts  you  to  sleep,  you'll 
know  whom  to  blame.' 

'  Yes,  yes,  go  on,'  she  said  impatiently. 

'  Dear  me,  there's  nothing  worth  telling.  It 
was  a  few  weeks  after  my  grandmother's  death. 
We  were  going  to  Paris  the  next  day.  Her 


238  GREY    ROSES 

father  drove  over,  with  her,  to  say  good-bye. 
Whilst  he  was  with  my  people  in  the  drawing- 
room,  she  and  I  walked  in  the  garden. — I  say, 
this  is  going  to  become  frightfully  sentimental, 
you  know.  Sure  you  want  it  ? ' 

'  Go  on.     Go  on.' 

*  Well,  we  walked  in  the  garden  ;  and  she 
was  crying,  and  I  was  beseeching  her  not  to 
cry.  She  wore  one  of  her  white  frocks,  with  a 
red  sash,  and  her  hair  fell  down  her  back  below 
her  waist.  I  was  holding  her  hand.  "  Don't 
cry,  don't  cry.  I'll  come  back  as  soon  as  I'm 
a  man,  and  marry  you  in  real  earnest ! "  I  pro 
mised  her.'  He  paused  and  laughed. 

'  Go  on.     And  she  ? ' 

'"Oh,  aren't  we  married  in  real  earnest  now?" 
she  asked.  I  explained  that  we  weren't.  "  You 
have  to  have  the  Notary  over  from  Bayonne, 
and  go  to  Church.  I  know,  because  that's  how 
it  was  when  my  cousin  Elodie  was  married. 
We're  only  married  in  play  ?  "  Then  she  asked 
if  that  wasn't  just  as  good.  "  Things  one  does 
in  play  are  always  so  much  nicer  than  real 
things,"  she  said.' 

'  Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings ! 
She  had  a  prophetic  soul.' 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  239 

c  Hadn't  she?  I  admitted  that  that  was  true. 
But  I  added  that  perhaps  when  people  were 
grown  up  and  could  do  exactly  as  they  pleased, 
it  was  different, — perhaps  real  things  would 
come  to  be  pleasant  too/ 

'  Have  you  found  them  so  ? ' 

'  I  suppose  I  can't  be  quite  grown-up,  for  I've 
never  yet  had  a  chance  to  do  exactly  as  I  pleased.' 

'  Poor  young  man.     Go  on.' 

*  And,  besides,  I  reminded  her,  all  the 
married  people  we  knew  were  really  married, 
my  father  and  mother,  Andre's  father  and 
mother,  my  cousin  Elodie.  H&ene's  mother 
was  dead,  so  her  parents  didn't  count.  And  I 
argued  that  we  might  be  sure  they  found  it 
fun  to  be  really  married,  or  else  they  wouldn't 
keep  it  up.  "  Oh,  well,  then,  I  suppose  we'll 
have  to  be  really  married  too,"  she  consented. 
"  But  it  seems  as  though  it  never  could  be  as 
nice  as  this.  If  only  you  weren't  going  away!" 
Whereupon  I  promised  again  to  come  back,  if 
she'd  promise  to  wait  for  me,  and  never  love 
anybody  else,  and  never,  never,  never  allow 
another  boy  to  kiss  her.  "  Oh,  never,  never, 
never,"  she  assured  me.  Then  her  father  called 
her,  and  they  drove  away.' 


240  GREY    ROSES 

'  And  you  went  to  Paris  and  forgot  her. 
Why  were  you  false  to  your  engagement  ? ' 

'Oh,  she  had  allowed  another  boy  to  kiss 
her.  She  had  married  a  German  prince.  Be 
sides,  I  received  a  good  deal  of  discouragement 
from  my  family.  The  next  day,  in  the  train,  I 
confided  our  understanding  to  my  mother. 
My  mother  seemed  to  doubt  whether  her  father 
would  like  me  as  a  son-in-law.  I  was  certain 
he  would ;  he  was  awfully  good-natured ;  he 
had  given  me  two  louis  as  a  parting  tip.  "  But 
do  you  think  he'll  care  to  let  his  daughter 
marry  a  bourgeois  ? "  my  mother  asked.  "  A 
what?"  cried  I.  UA  bourgeois,"  said  my 
mother.  "  I  ain't  a  bourgeois,"  I  retorted  indig 
nantly.  a  What  are  you  then  ? "  pursued  my 
mother.  I  explained  that  my  grandmother 
had  been  a  countess,  and  my  uncle  was  a 
count ;  so  how  could  I  be  a  bourgeois  ?  "  But 
what  is  your  father  ?  "  my  mother  asked.  Oh, 
my  father  was  "only  an  Englishman."  But 
that  didn't  make  me  a  bourgeois?  "Yes,  it 
does,"  my  mother  said,  "Just  because  my 
father's  English  ?  "  "  Because  he's  a  com 
moner,  because  he  isn't  noble."  "But  then 
—  then  what  did  you  go  and  marry  him 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  241 

for  ? "  I  stammered.  "  Where  would  you  have 
been  if  I  hadn't  ?  "  my  mother  enquired.  That 
puzzled  me  for  a  moment,  but  then  I  answered, 
"  Well,  if  you'd  married  a  Frenchman,  a  Count 
or  a  Duke  or  something,  I  shouldn't  have  been 
a  bourgeois ; "  and  my  mother  confessed  that 
that  was  true  enough.  "  I  don't  care  if  I  am  a 
bourgeois,"  I  said  at  last  M  When  I'm  big  I'm 
going  back  to  Saint-Graal ;  and  if  her  father 
won't  let  me  really  marry  her,  because  I'm  a 
bourgeois,  then  we'll  just  go  on  making  believe 
we're  married."' 

She  laughed.  '  And  now  yon  are  big, 
and  you've  come  back  to  Saint-Graal,  and 
your  lady-love  is  at  Granjolaye.  Why  don't 
you  call  on  her  and  offer  to  redeem  your 
promise?' 

'Why  doesn't  she  send  for  me — bid  me 
to  an  audience  ? ' 

'  Perhaps  her  prophetic  soul  warns  her  how 
you'd  disappoint  her.' 

'Do  you  think  she'd  be  disappointed  in 
me?' 

'Aren't  you  disappointed  in  yourself?' 

1  Oh,  dear,  no ;  I  think  I'm  very  nice.' 

'/  should  be  disappointed  in  myself,  if  I 
Q 


242  GREY    ROSES 

were  a  man  who  had  been  capable  of  such 
an  innocent,  sweet  affection  as  yours  for 
H61ene  de  la  Granjolaye,  and  had  then  gone 
and  soiled  myself  with  the  mud  of  what  they 
call  life.'  She  spoke  earnestly ;  her  face  was 
grave  and  sad. 

He  was  surprised,  and  a  little  alarmed. 
4  Do  you  mean  by  that  that  you  think  I'm 
a  bad  lot  ? '  he  asked. 

'  You  said  the  other  day — yesterday  was  it  ? 
— that  you  had  made  a  fool  of  yourself  on 
various  occasions.' 

'Well?' 

'Did  the  process  not  generally  involve 
making  a  fool  of  a  woman  too  ? ' 

'  Reciprocity  ?     Perhaps.' 

'  And  what  was  it  you  always  said  to 
them  ? ' 

'Oh,  I  suppose  I  did.' 

'  You  told  them  you  loved  them  ? ' 

'  I'm  afraid  so.' 

'  And  was  it  true  ? ' 

'No/ 

'Well,  then!' 

'  Ah,  but  they  weren't  deceived  ;  they  never 
believed  it  That's  only  a  convention  of  the 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  243 

game,  a  necessary  formula,  like  the  "Dear" 
at  the  beginning  of  a  letter.' 

'  You  have  "  lived  "  ;  you  have  "  lived." 
You'd  have  been  so  unique,  so  rare,  so  much 
more  interesting,  if  instead  of  going  and 
"living"  like  other  men,  you  had  remained 
true  to  the  ideal  passion  of  your  childhood.' 

'  I  had  the  misfortune  to  be  born  into  the 
world,  and  not  into  a  fairy  tale,  you  see.  But 
it's  a  perfectly  gratuitous  assumption,  that  I 
have  "  lived." ' 

'Can  you  honestly  tell  me  you  haven't?' 
she  asked,  very  soberly,  with  something  like 
eagerness  ;  her  pale  face  intent. 

'  As  a  matter  of  fact  .  .  .  Oh,  the  worst  of  it 
is  ...  I  can't  honestly  say  that  I've  never  .  .  . 
But  then,  what  do  you  want  to  rake  up  such 
matters  for  ?  It's  not  my  fault  if  I've  accepted 
the  traditions  of  my  century.  Well,  anyhow, 
you  see  I  can't  lie  to  you.' 

'  You  appear  to  find  it  difficult,'  she  as 
sented,  rising. 

'  Well,  what  do  you  infer  from  that  ? ' 

She  blew  her  whistle.  '  That — that  you're 
out  of  training,'  she  said  lightly,  as  she 
mounted  her  horse. 


244  GREY    ROSES 

'Oh,'  he  groaned,  'you're * 

'What?' 

'  You  beggar  language.' 
She  laughed  and  rode  away. 
'There,  I've  spoiled  everything,'  Paul  said, 
and  went  home,  and  passed  a  sleepless  night 


XI 


'111  bet  you  sixpence  she  won't  turn  np 
to-day,'  he  said  to  his  friend  in  the  glass, 
next  morning;  nevertheless  he  went  into  the 
forest,  and  there  she  was.  But  she  did  not 
offer  to  dismount. 

'  Isn't  there  another  inference  to  be  drawn 
from  my  inability  to  lie  to  you  ? '  he  asked. 

She  smiled  on  him  from  her  saddle.  '  Oh, 
perhaps  there  are  a  hundred.' 

'Don't  you  think  a  reasonable  inference  is 
that — I  love  you  t ' 

She  laughed. 

'  You  know  I  love  you,'  he  persisted. 

'  Oh,  the  conventions  of  the  game !  the  ne- 
cesary  formula,  like  "  Dear  "  at  the  beginning  of 
a  letter ! '  she  cried. 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  245 

'  You  don't  believe  me  ? ' 
'  Qui  m'aime  me  snivel  she  said,  spurring 
B£zigue  into  a  rapid  trot 


XII. 

But  the  next  day  he  found  her  already  in 
stalled  in  their  nook  among  the  trees. 

'  I  hate  people  who  doubt  my  word,'  he  said. 

1  Oh,  now  you  hate  me  ? ' 

' 1  love  you.     I  love  you.' 

She  drew  away  a  little. 

'  Oh,  you  needn't  be  afraid.  I  shan't  touch 
you.  Why  won't  you  believe  me  ? ' 

*  Do  men  always  glare  savagely  like  that  at 
women  they  love  ? ' 

'  Why  won't  you  believe  me  ? ' 

'  How  long  have  you  known  me  ? ' 

'All  my  life.  A  fortnight — three  weeks. 
But  that's  a  lifetime.' 

'  And  what  do  you  know  about  me  ? ' 

'Everything.  I  know  that  you're  adorable. 
And  I  adore  you.' 

'  Adorable — at  moments.  Do  you  know 
whether  I  am — married,  for  example  ? ' 


246  GREY    ROSES 

'  I  know  that  if  you  are,  I  should  like  to  kill 
your  husband.  Are  you  ?  Tell  me.  Put  me 
out  of  suspense.  Let  me  go  home  and  open  a 
vein.' 

*  Have  I  the  air  of  zjeunefillef* 

'Thank  goodness,  no.  But  there  are  such 
things  as  widows.' 

'  And  what  more  do  you  know  about  me  ? ' 

1  Tell  me — are  you  married  ? ' 

4  You  may  suppose  that  I'm  a  widow.' 

'Thank  God  I' 

She  laughed. 

'  Will  you  marry  me  ? '  he  asked. 

'  Oh,  marriage  is  such  a  bore,'  she  reminded 
him. 

'  Will  you  marry  me  ?  * 

'No,'  she  said.  'But  you  may  give  me  a 
cigarette.' 

And  for  a  while  they  smoked  without 
speaking. 

'  I  hope  at  any  rate  you  believe  me  now,'  he 
said. 

'  Because  you've  offered  to  make  the  crown 
ing  sacrifice?  By  the  bye,  what  is  my  num 
ber?' 

'  Oh,  don't,'  he  cried.   '  You're  the  only  woman 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN24? 

I've  ever  cared  a  straw  for ;  and  I  care  so  much 
for  you  that  I'd — I'd — '  He  stammered,  seek 
ing  for  a  thing  to  say  he'd  do. 

'You'd  go  to  the  length  of  marrying  me. 
Only  fancy ! ' 

'  Oh,  you  may  laugh.     But  I  love  you.' 

'Do  you  love  me  as  much  as  you  used  to 
love  H61ene?' 

'  I  love  you  as  much  as  it's  possible  for  a  man 
to  love  a  woman.' 

'  Do  you  know  what  I  think  ? ' 

'No.     What?' 

'  If  she  were  to  send  for  you,  one  of  these 
days,  I  think  you'd  forget  me  utterly.  Your 
old  love  would  come  back  at  sight  of  her.  They 
say  she's  very  good-looking.' 

'  Nonsense.' 

'  I  should  like  to  try  you.' 

'  I  shouldn't  fear  the  trial.' 

'  //  ne  faut  jamais  dire  d  la  fontaine,  Jt  ne 
boirai  pas  de  ton  eau.' 

'  But  when  one's  thirst  is  for  wine  ? ' 

*  It  shows  that  there's  some  relation  between 
psychology  and  geography,  after  all,'  she  said. 

'  What  do  you  mean  ? ' 

'  Oh,  the  influence  of  places.    It  is  here  that 


248  GREY    ROSES 

you  and  she  used  to  play  a  fugue  on  each 
other's  names.  The  spot  raises  ghosts.  Ghosts 
of  your  old  emotions.  And  I'm  conveniently 
at  hand.' 

'  If  you  could  see  yourself,  you'd  understand 
that  the  influence  of  places  is  superfluous.  If 
you  could  look  into  my  heart  you'd  recognise 
that  my  emotion  is  scarcely  a  ghost.' 

*  There's  one  thing  I  should  like  to  see,'  she 
said.     '  I  should  very  much  like  to  look  into 
your  garden  at  Saint-Graal.' 

'Would  you?'  he  cried  eagerly.  'When 
will  you  come  ? ' 

'  Whenever  you  like  ?  * 

*  Now.     At  once.' 

'  No.    To-morrow/ 

1  To-morrow  morning  ? ' 

'  Yes.  You  can  await  me  at  your  park-gates 
at  eleven.' 

'Then  you'll  lunch  with  me?' 

'  No.  .  .  .     Perhaps.' 

1  You're  an  angel ! ' 

And  he  trudged  home  on  the  air.  '  If  a 
woman  will  listen ! '  his  heart  sang.  *  If  a 
woman  will  come  to  see  your  garden  1 ' 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN  249 
XIII. 

That  evening  a  servant  handed  him  a  letter. 

'  A  footman  has  brought  it  from  Granjolaye, 
and  is  waiting  for  an  answer.' 

The  letter  ran  thus  : — 

'  Monsieur : 

'  I  am  directed  by  Her  Majesty  the 
Queen  Helene  to  request  the  pleasure  of  your 
company  at  the  Chateau  de  Granjolaye  to 
morrow  at  eleven.  Her  Majesty  desires  me  to 
add  that  she  has  only  to-day  learned  of  your 
presence  in  the  country. 

'  Agrdez,  Monsieur,  1'assurance  de  mes  senti 
ments  distingues, 

'  CXSSSE.  DE  WOLFENBACH.' 

'  Oh,  this  is  staggering,'  cried  Paul.  '  What 
to  do  ? '  He  walked  backwards  and  forwards, 
pondering  his  reply.  '  I  believe  the  only  ex 
cuse  that  will  pass  with  Royalty  is  illness  or 
death.  Shall  I  send  word  that  I  died  suddenly 
this  morning  Ah,  well,  here  goes  for  a 
thumping  lie.' 

And  he  wrote : '  Madame,  I  am  unspeakably 
honoured  by  her  Majesty's  command,  and  in 
despair  that  the  state  of  my  health  makes  it 


250  GREY    ROSES 

impossible  for  me  to  obey  it.  I  am  confined 
to  my  bed  by  a  severe  attack  of  bronchitis. 
Pray  express  to  her  Majesty  my  most  respect 
ful  thanks  as  well  as  my  profound  regret.  I 
shall  hope  to  be  able  to  leave  my  room  at  the 
week's  end,  when,  if  her  Majesty  can  be  pre 
vailed  upon  again  to  accord  me  an  audience,  I 
shall  be  infinitely  grateful.' 

'  There ! '  he  muttered.  *  I  have  perjured  my 
soul  for  you,  and  made  myself  appear  ridicul 
ous  into  the  bargain.  Bronchitis !  But — 
a  demain  !  Good — good  Lord  !  if  she  shouldn't 
come  ?  * 


XIV 

She    came,    followed    by    a    groom.      She 
greeted  Paul  with  a  smile  that  made  his  heart 
leap  with  a  wild  hope.    Her  groom  led  B6zigue 
away  to  the  stables. 
.     'Thank  you,'  said  Paul. 

1  For  what  ? ' 

'For  everything.     For  coming.     For  that 
smile.' 

'Oh.' 


CASTLES    NEAR    SPAIN25I 

They  walked  about  the  garden.  'It  is 
lovely.  The  prettiest  garden  of  the  neighbour 
hood,'  she  said.  'Show  me  where  the  irises 
grow,  by  the  pond.'  And  when  they  had 
arrived  there, '  They  do  look  like  princesses, 
don't  they  ?  Your  little  friend  had  some  per 
ceptions.  Show  me  where  you  and  she  used  to 
sit  down.  I  am  tired.' 

He  led  her  into  a  corner  of  the  rosery.  She 
sank  upon  the  turf. 

'  It  is  nice  here/  she  said, '  and  quite  shut  in. 
One  would  never  know  there  was  a  house  so 
near.' 

She  had  taken  off  one  of  her  gloves.  Her 
soft  white  hand  lay  languidly  in  her  lap.  Sud 
denly  Paul  seized  it,  and  kissed  it — furiously 
— again  and  again.  She  yielded  it.  It  was 
sweet  to  smell,  and  warm.  '  My  God,  how  I 
love  you,  how  I  love  you ! '  he  murmured. 

When  he  looked  up,  she  was  smiling.  '  Oh, 
you  are  radiant !  You  are  divine ! '  he  cried. 
And  then  her  eyes  filled  with  tears.  '  What  is 
it  ?  What  is  it  ?  You  are  unhappy  ? ' 

'  Oh,  no,'  she  said.  '  But  to  think — to  think 
that  after  all  these  years  of  misery,  of  heart 
break,  it  should  end  like  this,  here.' 


GREY    ROSES 

1  Here  ? '  he  questioned. 

'  I  am  glad  your  bronchitis  is  better,  but  you 
can  invent  the  most  awful  fibs,'  she  said. 

He  looked  at  her,  while  the  universe  whirled 
round  him. 

'Helenel* 

•Paul!' 


XV. 

Her  divorce  didn't  carry  with  it  the  right  to 
marry  again.  But  she  said,  '  We  can  go  on 
making  believe  we're  married.  Things  one 
does  in  play  are  always  so  much  nicer  than 
real  things.'  And  when  he  spoke  of  the  'world,' 
she  answered,  '  I  have  nothing  to  fear  or  to 
hope  from  the  world.  It  has  done  its  worst  by 
me  already.' 

As  they  walked  back  to  the  house  for  lun 
cheon,  Paul  looked  into  her  face,  and  said, '  I 
can't  believe  my  eyes,  you  know.' 

She  smiled  and  took  his  arm.  '  J*  t'  aime 
tant,'  she  whispered. 

'  And  now  I  can't  believe  my  ears !' 


CASTLES  NEAR   SPAIN    253 

And  this  would  appear  to  be  the  end,  but  I 
suppose  it  can't  be,  for  everybody  says  now 
adays  that  nothing  ever  ends  happily  here 
below. 


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